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On November 19, 2015, FERC issued an order confirming that certain qualifying facilities (“QFs”) under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) with market-based rate (“MBR”) authority, generator interconnection facilities, or other jurisdictional assets are exempt from section 203(a)(1) of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”), which requires public utilities to receive Commission authorization before acquiring or disposing of certain jurisdictional facilities.

On November 10, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) granted a motion for a technical conference and request to postpone the comment deadline (“Motion”) that was filed in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Collection of Connected Entity Data from Regional Transmission Organization and Independent System Operators (“NOPR”) that the FERC issued on September 17, 2015 (see September 21, 2015 edition of the WER). The FERC directed staff to convene a technical conference on December 8, 2015 and postponed the due date for comments on the NOPR until January 22, 2016.

On November 5, 2015, NERC reported to the NERC Board of Trustees (“NERC Board”) that it had been unable to identify groups of similarly-situated Transmission Owners (“TOs”), Transmission Operators (“TOPs”), Generator Owners (“GOs”), or Generator Operators (GOPs”), that should automatically qualify for a reduced set of compliance obligations through a “sub-set” list of Reliability Standards, as part of Phase II of NERC’s Risk-Based Registration (“RBR”) initiative. The NERC Board accepted the report, and endorsed a recommendation from NERC that such “sub-set” lists be granted by the NERC-led review panel to individual entities on a case-by-case basis, rather than as a class, at least for the time being.

On November 4, 2015, FERC issued an order conditionally accepting the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) compliance filings articulating its Reliability Assurance Initiative (“RAI”) concepts and programs, and providing details on NERC’s oversight and evaluation of the RAI program (“November Order”).  FERC’s acceptance is conditioned upon NERC providing additional information in its annual report on RAI and making an additional compliance filing to modify its Rules of Procedure within 120 days of the November Order.

On November 4, 2015, the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) Board of Governors unanimously approved certain design changes to the western Energy Imbalance Market (“EIM”). These changes and enhancements are part of CAISO’s “year 1 phase 2 enhancements” – including items and issues that the CAISO originally determined would benefit from having six months of operational experience under the EIM to inform their resolution, as well as certain items that were deferred from phase 1 to allow for additional stakeholder input.

On November 2, 2015, the Commission conditionally approved revised Regional Delegation Agreements (“RDAs”) between the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and the eight NERC Regional Entities. The RDAs are the agreements through which NERC delegates to the Regional Entities its legal authority under Section 215 of the Federal Power Act to propose and enforce mandatory Reliability Standards.

On November 5, 2015, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued two orders, each of which clarified implementation of FERC’s gas-electric coordination rules adopted in FERC Order No. 787. In proceedings related to PJM’s and NYISO’s implementation of Order No. 787, National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation (“NFG Distribution”) sought clarification regarding its ability to communicate with third parties to seek operational changes in natural gas transportation or consumption so long as it did not reveal non-public information received from PJM or NYISO.  FERC granted NFG Distribution’s requests for clarification in both proceedings.

On November 5, 2015, FERC issued an order accepting four non-conforming and negotiated rate agreements, subject to conditions, between Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC (“Columbia”) and New Jersey Natural Gas Company (“NJNG”), South Jersey Gas Company (“SJ Gas”), and South Jersey Resources Group (“SJ Resources”).  In the order, FERC found that two provisions in the agreements were permissible material deviations from Columbia’s pro forma agreement either because they had been offered to all anchor shippers or because they did not provide certain shippers with a different quality of service or adversely affect other shippers.  However, FERC held two material deviations to be impermissible because they conferred “valuable rights” and were not offered to other anchor shippers.

On October 14, 2015, FERC issued an order (“October 14 Order”) denying rehearing and stay of its December 18, 2014 order (“December 18 Order”) authorizing Columbia Gas Transmission, LLC (“Columbia”) to construct and operate its East Side Expansion Project and abandon facilities that will be replaced as part of the project.  In the October 14 Order, FERC found that it had fully addressed environmental issues raised by the Clean Air Council and the Allegheny Defense Project (“Allegheny”) in its environmental assessment (“EA”) and the December 18 Order.