Energy Corridor Section 368 Screener

Screen project or route coordinates against the Section 368 West-wide Energy Corridors - the federal energy right-of-way corridors designated under Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on BLM and USFS land in the 11 western states.

For each site you get: whether it is inside a corridor, the corridor name, designated width, permitted use, managing agency, whether a later land-use plan amendment deleted or restricted it, the distance to the nearest corridor within your radius, and a right-of-way streamlining signal.

Editorial screening signal only. Not a permit, and not an official BLM or USFS corridor determination.

Two sources, and why that matters

Earlier versions of this actor screened only the Argonne mirror and documented it as a "static snapshot updated 2017-12-12". Both parts were wrong: the service reports a last edit of 2020-11-30, and BLM maintains its own corridor layer that is four and a half years newer and carries 50 more polygons.

The two alignments genuinely disagree, in both directions - verified live:

• (43.52738, -116.96533) - inside corridor 11-228 in BLM's current data, outside it in the 2020 mirror. The old actor reported no corridor here.
• (41.673613, -107.700677) - inside corridor 78-138 in the 2020 mirror, outside it in BLM's current data, which realigned the corridor. The old actor reported a corridor hit, and this coordinate was its own prefill example.

So the primary answer now comes from BLM's current layer, the mirror is still queried, and in_corridor_argonne and corridor_alignment_disagreement report the difference on every row instead of silently picking one.

The status field decides whether a corridor still exists

sec368status is a closed 10-value vocabulary, and four of those values mean the corridor was deleted by a later land-use plan amendment:

• Designated as 368, but deleted in subsequent GRSG ARMPA RMP amendment
• Designated as 368, but deleted in subsequent Grand Junction RMP
• Designated as 368, but deleted for Beaver Dam Wash NCA
• Designated as 368, then re-designated as part of Dominguez Escalante NCA

The previous version tested status.includes("designated"), which is true for all four - so a deleted corridor was reported as designated and raised the streamlining flag. Two other values (

Not designated as 368, but added in subsequent ...

What each run asserts before it bills you

• both services resolve and still publish the fields the mapper reads
• each corridor count is inside a measured band
• every published sec368status value is in the recognised vocabulary
• a positive canary (corridor 27-41, Mojave CA) is returned by both services
• a divergence canary (corridor 11-228) confirms the primary source is the newer alignment
• a negative control (downtown Denver) returns nothing from either service
• coordinates pass a degree-magnitude check

Any failure fails the run loudly, billing nothing.

Who this is for

• Transmission and pipeline developers routing across federal land.
• Renewable and storage developers evaluating interconnection routes.
• Right-of-way and permitting consultants assessing NEPA scope.
• Land and GIS analysts batch-screening route alternatives.
• AI agents turning a coordinate into a corridor answer over MCP.

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 34.57155, "lon": -115.54038, "label": "Mojave, CA", "radiusMiles": 10 },
    { "lat": 43.52738, "lon": -116.96533, "label": "SW Idaho", "radiusMiles": 10 },
    { "lat": 39.7392,  "lon": -104.9903,  "label": "Denver, CO (control)", "radiusMiles": 10 }
  ],
  "radiusMiles": 10,
  "maxAssets": 500
}

null is not false

false means the source answered and the answer was negative. null means it did not answer. Both services record their own outcome (blm_current_source_status, argonne_source_status, plus sources_failed and partial_result), and in_corridor is null - never false - when the primary source did not respond. If no asset produced a determination the run fails and nothing is billed.

Coverage

The Section 368 program covers BLM and USFS land in AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA and WY. A clear result outside that footprint (Chicago, say) is a valid finding, not missing data.

Output fields

One row per screened asset. Every field below is emitted on every row.

Columns that are null on a healthy run

error, sources_failed, blm_current_source_error and argonne_source_error are null when everything worked - that is the good news, not a dead column. error is populated by an unparseable coordinate (for example

{"lat": 999, "lon": 0}

How distances are computed

in_corridor is an authoritative server-side point-in-polygon test - the corridor polygon already reflects the designated width, so no buffer is applied. For assets that are not inside a corridor, an envelope query returns nearby corridor polygons with geometry, and nearest_distance_miles is the straight-line distance to the nearest boundary edge. It is not a routing distance. The envelope is a bounding box, so it reaches further than the radius at the corners; corridors beyond the radius are dropped before the row is built. If a single envelope query would need more pages than the actor allows, the run fails rather than returning an arbitrary truncated subset.

Use as an MCP tool

Available to AI agents through mcp.apify.com. Every output field carries a description. An agent should check nearest_corridor_deleted_or_prohibited before treating a corridor hit as a streamlining opportunity, and partial_result before treating a negative as final.

Pricing

Pay per result: $7 per 1,000 rows (one row per screened site), with graduated discounts on paid Apify plans. A failed run emits no rows and bills no result events.

FAQ

Why did an answer change from a previous run? Most likely corridor_alignment_disagreement is true: BLM's current corridor alignment differs from the 2020 Argonne mirror this actor used to rely on. Both answers ship on the row.

The corridor is designated but the streamlining flag is false. Check nearest_sec368_status_label. A later land-use plan amendment may have deleted the corridor, or statute may prohibit its designation.

Why is nearest_width_feet empty? The source published -1, its "unknown" sentinel, rather than a real width. nearest_width_feet_is_unpublished flags it. It is never emitted as a negative number.

My point is in the eastern US. Section 368 corridors exist only on federal land in the 11 western states, so a clear there is a real answer.

What does the streamlining flag actually mean? That a route inside this corridor may qualify for a streamlined federal right-of-way review, because the corridor completed the multi-agency NEPA siting analysis in the 2008 West-wide Energy Corridor PEIS and subsequent Records of Decision. Project-specific NEPA and agency ROW approval are still required.

Related actors

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• HIFLD Grid Proximity Screener - nearest transmission line and substation.
• Interconnection Queue Tracker - ISO/RTO queue position and timelines.
• Site Due Diligence Bundle - 20 environmental and siting layers in one call.

Editorial screening signal only. Not a permit and not an official BLM or USFS determination. Confirm current corridor status and any site-specific NEPA or right-of-way requirements with BLM or USFS before relying on it.