Adrienne Thompson

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On June 1, 2020, FERC issued an order on remand from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (the “D.C. Circuit”) directing the Bonneville Power Administration (“Bonneville”) to return to Chehalis Power Generating, L.P. (“Chehalis”) refunded payments for reactive power supplied to Bonneville from August 1, 2005 through September 30, 2005. While FERC declined to require Bonneville to return the entire refund amount requested by Chehalis, it did provide interest calculated according to FERC’s interest regulation.

On May 21, 2020, FERC reversed, on rehearing, an earlier determination from October 2017 that the Commission has the authority to require the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) to revise its Transmission, Energy and Operating Reserve Markets Tariff (“Tariff”) to include refund commitments by non-public utility transmission owning members. FERC found that although it has authority to review non-public utility rates included in jurisdictional rates (such as MISO’s), it was neither necessary nor appropriate to impose the refund commitment contemplated on non-public transmission owners in MISO. FERC also dismissed, as moot, MISO’s compliance filing submitted in response to the October 2017 Order, and terminated various related proceedings.

On May 21, 2020, FERC issued Opinion No. 569-A, which revised the Commission’s methodology for determining whether an established rate of return on equity (“ROE”) is just and reasonable under section 206 of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”). Among other things, Opinion No. 569-A accepts the use of a third financial model for establishing just and reasonable ROE for Transmission Owners (“TOs”)—the “Risk Premium Model” (which was rejected in an earlier opinion)—in addition to the previously accepted two-step discount cash flow (“DCF”) model and capital asset pricing model (“CAPM”). Commissioner Richard Glick dissented in part, arguing that FERC was “once again changing course and revamping [its] ROE methodology” to the detriment of regulatory certainty among TOs and investors. In a related action, FERC contemporaneously issued a Policy Statement clarifying that the newly revised ROE methodology in Opinion No. 569-A applies to natural gas and oil pipelines, with certain exceptions.

On May 1, 2020, the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) to update its National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) implementing regulations concerning applications to import to, or export from, liquid natural gas (“LNG”) terminals. In particular, DOE has previously determined that the transportation of natural gas by marine vessels normally does not pose the potential for significant environmental impacts, and accordingly, exports of LNG should be considered a “categorical exclusion” from NEPA review.  Comments are due June 1, 2020. 

On May 7, 2020, FERC’s Division of Audits and Accounting issued a guidance letter on how regulated entities may account for expected credit losses on accounts receivable.  The letter, issued to ease regulatory burdens on the energy industry in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, clarifies that Financial Accounting Standard Board’s Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2016-13 is an acceptable methodology for purposes of financial accounting and reporting obligations on jurisdictional public utilities and licensees, natural gas companies, oil pipeline companies, and centralized service companies.

On April 24, 2020, FERC largely upheld an earlier-issued order imposing additional transparency obligations on Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”), Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”), and PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) (collectively, “RTOs”) regarding the RTOs’ Affected Systems study processes. FERC declined to require holistic alignment of the RTOs’ interconnection study processes, but clarified that, in subsequent compliance filings, the Commission will scrutinize whether each RTO applies the Energy Resource Interconnection Service (“ERIS”) or Network Resource Interconnection Service (“NRIS”) modeling standards in a just and reasonable manner.

On May 1, 2020, President Trump issued Executive Order No. 13920 (“Executive Order”) prohibiting Federal agencies and U.S. persons from engaging in certain “transactions” defined thereunder—specifically, acquiring, importing, transferring, or installing certain items defined in the Executive Order as “bulk-power system electric equipment”—with “foreign adversaries.” Such equipment classifications and types are specified in the order and include “items used in bulk-power substations, control rooms, or power generating stations.” The prohibitions apply to transactions involving such equipment if such items are (i) designed, developed, manufactured, or supplied by a foreign adversary, or by persons under the control, direction, or jurisdiction of such adversaries and where (ii) such equipment pose an unacceptable risk to national security and America’s safety.

On April 22, 2020, FERC accepted tariff revisions from Southwest Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”) to comply with a October 17, 2019 order accepting in part SPP’s Order No. 841 compliance proposal (the “October Order”). FERC also directed SPP to submit a further compliance filing to specifically exempt run-of-the-river hydroelectric, wind, and solar resources from the continuous minimum run-time requirement under SPP’s Resource Adequacy tariff provisions and Planning Criteria.

On April 17, 2020, FERC granted the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) request to defer implementing several Commission-approved Reliability Standards that have effective dates or phased-in implementation dates in the second half of 2020. NERC argued the deferred implementation would not hamper grid reliability but would instead allow NERC-registered entities additional flexibility to continue prioritizing worker safety and reliability during the COVID-19 pandemic.