Federal judges on Wednesday considered whether U.S. energy regulators should have more thoroughly considered the option of taking down a set of dams along the border between Maine and New Hampshire, but did not tip their hand on how they might rule in the case.
During oral arguments, only one of the three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who heard the case asked questions about whether the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission violated the National Environmental Policy Act when it determined that the potential benefits to species and boaters of removing the two dams were too speculative to justify decommissioning the project.
“I’m trying to understand what the actual recreational benefits would be,” Judge Florence Pan said to Haley Nicholson, an attorney for Public Justice representing the group American Whitewater, at the start of the argument.
Pan, a Biden appointee, said the record indicates that the dams are in an industrial area and said it was not clear that the stretch of river would be restored if the project were removed.
