During Third-stage Consultation, the licensee will file a license application. FERC will issue tendering and other notices, as in the ILP. It will then undertake scoping and preparation of the environmental document.
As required by the FPA, the license application must be filed not less than 24 months before expiration of the existing license.1 Content and other requirements for the application track the ILP.
16 U.S.C. ยง 808(c)(1).
These steps (including the deadlines for comments, submittal of mandatory or other conditions, or other responses which vary by notice) largely track the ILP process as discussed in Section 4, except that the Notice of Acceptance in the TLP precedes the REA Notice.
Sometime after the Tendering Notice, FERC will typically issue a Scoping Document for its environmental review. This will include the expected date for publication of the REA Notice.
The TLP differs substantially from the ILP at this critical step. In the TLP, OEP has discretion not to publish a Scoping Document, hold a site visit, or revise any such document in response to public comments. Any such document will be published after the application is filed, while the ILP requires FERC to publish a SD-1 nearly 2.75 years earlier, just after the NOI. In the TLP, OEP does not have any obligation to consider cooperative arrangements with other agencies or tribes with jurisdiction over the affected resources.
The environmental document here tracks the ILP requirements as discussed in Section 4.5.2.
These processes track the ILP requirements as discussed in Section 4.5.3