Cnty. of Butte v. Dep't of Water Res.

*633 The Department of Water Resources (DWR) applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) to extend its federal license to operate Oroville Dam and its facilities as a hydroelectric dam. 1 The project is referred to as the Oroville Facilities Project (sometimes also Project or Settlement Agreement (SA) ) by which the affected parties agree to the conditions for the extended license. "The SA includes Appendix A, which incorporates all of the ... measures that the Settling Parties believe to be under FERC's jurisdiction." 2 The objective of the Project is the continued operation of the Oroville Facilities for power generation and the implementation of conditions for the extended license.

The plaintiffs brought this action in the superior court to stay the license procedure on the premise the environmental *722 effects of relicensing the dam *634 concern the operation of the dam and that jurisdiction to review the matter lies in the state courts pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act ( Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq. ; hereinafter CEQA). 3 They claim that a CEQA document offered to support the DWR's application to FERC failed to…