On May 23, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) held that FERC did not violate the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) by issuing Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company, LLC (“Transco”) a certificate of public convenience and necessity (“CPCN”) before the state of Pennsylvania had issued a CWA § 401 water quality certification that must be obtained by a CPCN applicant prior to FERC approving any activity that may result in a discharge into navigable waters.  In doing so, the D.C. Circuit held that FERC’s issuance of a CPCN did not violate the CWA because FERC’s CPCN order expressly conditioned FERC’s approval of potential discharge activity on Transco first obtaining the requisite CWA § 401 certification and because the CPCN itself does not authorize any potential discharge activity. 

On May 19, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) issued a decision in which it held in part that FERC erred by determining that it lacked authority under the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) to order a non-jurisdictional entity to repay refunds that it should not have received.  The D.C. Circuit made clear that although the FPA prohibits FERC from ordering a non-jurisdictional entity to provide a refund to another entity, FPA Section 309 vests FERC with broad remedial authority, including authority to grant recoupment when it is justified and FERC otherwise has jurisdiction over the disputed funds.

In an unpublished opinion issued May 12, 2017, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Ninth Circuit”) affirmed the dismissal of a civil suit alleging that a JPMorgan Chase & Co. subsidiary—J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corporation (“JPM Ventures”)—fraudulently manipulated rates in the California wholesale electricity market in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”).

On May 12, 2017, PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) submitted to FERC revisions to the PJM Open Access Transmission Tariff (“OATT”), Attachment K-Appendix and the PJM Amended and Restated Operating Agreement, Schedule 1 to implement changes to the Operating Reserve demand curves (“ORDC”) that are embedded in PJM’s real-time market clearing engines.  According to PJM, the proposed changes to the ORDC are necessary to set clearing prices relative to the degree of severity of a reserve shortage.

On May 18, 2017, ISO New England Inc. (“ISO-NE”) and the New England Power Pool Participants Committee (together with ISO-NE, the “Filing Parties”) proposed revisions to the ISO-NE/New York Independent System Operator, Inc. (“NYISO”) Coordination Agreement (the “NE/NY Coordination Agreement”) and the term sheet indicating the price of emergency energy sold to Hydro-Quebec Transenergie (“HQTE”) by ISO-NE (the “HQTE EE Pricing Schedule”) to reflect changes that were implemented to ISO-NE’s Market Rule regarding emergency energy purchases and sales.  The NE/NY Coordination Agreement specifies, among other things, the terms and conditions under which a control area will provide energy to the neighboring control area during emergency conditions.  These terms and conditions include the price one control area will charge the other for providing emergency energy. 

On May 9, 2017, the New Jersey Boroughs of Milltown, Park Ridge, and South River (collectively, “New Jersey Boroughs”) filed a Federal Power Act (“FPA”) Section 206 complaint against Public Service Electric & Gas Company (“PSE&G”) seeking to reduce PSE&G’s current base return on equity (“ROE”) of 11.18 percent to a base ROE of no higher than 8.3 percent.  Additionally, the New Jersey Boroughs requested that FERC order refunds and establish the date of the complaint as the refund effective date.

On May 8, 2017, the nation’s Regional Transmission Organizations and Independent System Operators (“RTOs/ISOs”) submitted their respective compliance filings to implement the directives from FERC Order No. 831, which revised FERC’s regulations regarding incremental energy offer caps imposed by RTOs/ISOs.

On May 10, 2017, FERC issued notice that FERC staff will convene a technical conference on June 29, 2017 on natural gas index liquidity and transparency.  Specifically, the purpose of the technical conference is to (1) understand the state of liquidity in physical natural gas markets; (2) explore trends in physical gas trading and price reporting and how the use of natural gas indices have evolved over time; (3) obtain industry views on the confidence in natural gas indices and price formation; and (4) consider whether there is a need to improve natural gas market liquidity and price reporting and, if so, how.

President Donald Trump will nominate Neil Chatterjee and Robert Powelson as FERC Commissioners, the White House announced on Monday.

Chatterjee has been the energy policy adviser to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell since 2012.  Prior to that, Chatterjee worked as a lobbyist for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.  …

On April 28, 2017, Commissioner Colette Honorable announced that she will not pursue another term as a Commissioner at FERC after her current term expires June 30, 2017.  Commissioner Honorable is serving her first term with the Commission.  After she was appointed by President Obama, she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 16, 2014 (see December 19, 2014 edition of the WER).  Prior to joining FERC, Commissioner Honorable was the Chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission and also was president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.