Environmental Law & Policy Center v. N.D. Public Svc. Commission

Citations

• 2020 ND 192

Syllabus

The Administrative Agencies Practice Act governs an appeal from a decision of the Public Service Commission. The Public Service Commission's authority to regulate is limited to that authority provided to it by the legislature. For an administrative agency, the term \jurisdiction\ has three components: (1) personal jurisdiction, referring to the agency's authority over the parties and intervenors involved in the proceedings (2) subject matter jurisdiction, referring to the agency's power to hear and determine the causes of a general class of cases to which a particular case belongs and (3) the agency's scope of authority under statute. The Commission's regulatory authority is limited to projects that meet the definition of \gas or liquid energy conversion facility\ found in N.D.C.C. § 49-22.1-01(6). A refinery not designed for or capable of refining 50,000 bpd is not a \gas or liquid energy conversion facility\ as that term is defined. A project proponent may avoid the time and expense of the Commission's regulatory review that comes with a larger project by deciding to reduce the scale of a project to a size just below the regulatory threshold.