On December 18, 2014, FERC granted a Petition for Declaratory Order filed by the Public Service Company of Colorado (“PSCo”) which requested certain clarifications regarding the application of FERC’s prior approval jurisdiction under section 203 of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) in the context of the assertion of eminent domain by a political subdivision of a state over the transmission assets of a public utility.  In granting the Petition, FERC clarified that transfers by condemnation, regardless of the fact that they are involuntary, are appropriately within the domain of FERC’s 203 prior approval authority.

On December 11, 2014, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) submitted proposed revisions to its Rules of Procedure in order to implement the Risk-Based Registration (“RBR”) Initiative.  If approved, the revisions would significantly modify how NERC assigns responsibility to entities for compliance with mandatory Reliability Standards.

On December 18, 2014, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing modifications to Part 46 of its regulations regarding the reporting of a utility’s twenty largest purchasers.  The NOPR proposes to eliminate the need to file FERC-566 – an annual report that lists the reporting utility’s twenty largest purchasers – for certain public utilities.  In doing so, FERC stated that the NOPR would reduce the regulatory burden of filings while enhancing the quality of information collected.

On December 16, 2014, the U.S. Senate confirmed President Barack Obama’s nomination of Colette Honorable to serve as a FERC Commissioner (see December 15, 2014 edition of the WER).  Ms. Honorable is the current Chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission and immediate past president of the National…

On December 5, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remanded a 2013 Commission order, finding that FERC had failed to adequately explain its reasoning in departing from its “general policy” of ordering refunds when consumers have paid unjust and unreasonable rates.

On December 9, 2014, FERC announced that it would hold a series of technical conferences to discuss what implications are involved with a variety of compliance approaches used to satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan rule.  The technical conferences will begin on February 19, 2015 and generally focus on issues related to electric reliability, wholesale electric markets and operations, and energy infrastructure. 

On December 4, 2014, FERC Nominee Colette Honorable, who has been nominated to fill the vacancy left by former Commissioner John Norris, testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (“Committee”).  Currently, Ms. Honorable serves as the Chairman of the Arkansas Public Service Commission.

On November 28, 2014, the Commission conditionally accepted PJM Interconnection’s (“PJM”) proposed modifications to several of the key pricing elements used to clear PJM’s capacity market auctions, subject to PJM making a compliance filing removing a proposal relating to location-specific price elements.  The Commission found that these changes were reasonably needed for PJM to achieve an acceptable level of reliability over the long-term.

On November 28, 2014, FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement (“Agreement”) between its Office of Enforcement (“Enforcement”), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) relating to the 2011 Southwest blackout in Southern California, Arizona and Northern Baja Mexico that affected 2.7 million customers.  Under the terms of the Agreement, CAISO will pay a combined civil penalty of $6,000,000, with $2,000,000 divided equally among NERC and the U.S. Treasury, and $4,000,000 invested in reliability enhancements measures.  CAISO also agreed to commit to mitigation and compliance measures, and to submit semi-annual compliance reports to Enforcement for at least one year.