FERC Enforcement

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In an order dated May 20, 2021, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC, or the Commission) terminated the hydropower licenses for three projects located on the Tittabawasee River in Michigan—the Secord (P-10809), Smallwood (P-10810) and Sanford (P-2785) dams.  The termination by implied surrender follows a May 2020 breach at the…

On May 20, 2021, FERC issued a Show Cause Order directing GreenHat Energy, LLC (“GreenHat”) and its owners to show why they did not violate the Federal Power Act, FERC’s regulations, the PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) Tariff, and the PJM Operating Agreement by manipulating PJM’s Financial Transmission Rights (“FTR”) market, generating $13 million in unjust profits and imposing $179 million in losses on PJM members. FERC also directed GreenHat and its owners to file an answer with FERC within 30 days showing why they should not be required to disgorge $13 million in unjust profits, plus interest, and to pay civil penalties totaling $229 million. FERC’s order is accompanied by a report from FERC’s Office of Enforcement (“OE Report”). Commissioner James Danly issued a separate concurring statement.

On December 17, 2020, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposing to revise its regulations to establish incentives for public utilities to make certain cybersecurity investments that go beyond the current requirements of the Critical Infrastructure Protection (“CIP”) Reliability Standards established by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) (“Cybersecurity NOPR”). Specifically, FERC proposed rules to allow regulated entities to:

  1. receive incentive-based rate treatment for the voluntary implementation of: (i) certain NERC CIP Reliability Standards to facilities that are not currently subject to those requirements (“NERC CIP Incentives Approach”), and/or (ii) certain security controls included in the National Institute of Standards and Technology Framework (“NIST Framework Approach”);
  2. request a return-on-equity adder of two hundred (200) basis points for making eligible cybersecurity capital investments; and
  3. defer cost recovery of certain cybersecurity costs that are generally expensed as incurred, and treat such costs as regulatory assets that may be included in transmission rate base.

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 2, 2020, FERC issued several orders aimed at helping regulated entities manage compliance deadlines and related issues in the wake of COVID-19 response.  Chairman Neil Chatterjee also issued a press release confirming the pandemic qualifies as an emergency under the Commission’s rules and detailing additional steps in FERC’s plan to help regulated entities manage potential enforcement and compliance-related burdens during the pandemic, including two new task forces to expedite standards of conduct waiver requests and no-action letters.

On February 11, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit (“Fourth Circuit”) held that FERC’s claim for civil penalties under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) against Powhatan Energy Fund, LLC and certain of its traders and affiliates (“Powhatan”) was not barred by the statute of limitations. In doing so, the Fourth Circuit held that FERC’s claim in federal district court did not accrue for statute of limitation purposes until all of the legal prerequisites for filing the suit had been met, including failure by Powhatan to pay its assessed penalties.