On December 10, 2019 FERC accepted ISO New England Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) proposed revisions to its Tariff to enhance the competitive transmission solicitation process and make additional improvements to ISO-NE’s transmission planning process (“Transmission Planning Improvements”). ISO-NE’s proposal was joined by New England Power Pool Participants Committee and the Participating Transmission Owners Administrative Committee (collectively, “Filing Parties”). The Filing Parties’ Transmission Planning Improvements went into effect on December 10, 2019.

On December 9, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to revisit the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit’s decision in Hoopa Valley Tribe v. FERC, 913 F.3d 1099 (2019), allowing the lower court’s ruling to stand.  The key holding of the D.C. Circuit’s opinion, which concerned the ongoing Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (“FERC”) relicensing of the Klamath Hydroelectric Project, is that the States of California and Oregon waived their authorities under section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. § 1341, by failing to rule on the applicant’s submitted request for water quality certification within one year.  The D.C. Circuit held that the plain language of CWA section 401 establishes a maximum period of one year for states to act on a request for water quality certification.  Accordingly, the court further held that FERC erred in concluding that the “withdrawal-and-resubmittal” of the water quality certification application on an annual basis resets the one-year statutory time period for state action under section 401.

On November 26, 2019, FERC rejected, without prejudice, various filings from Basin Electric Power Cooperative (“Basin”) to establish FERC-jurisdictional rates, terms, and conditions of wholesale power and transmission service ahead of certain anticipated changes among Basin’s member cooperatives that would trigger FERC jurisdiction. FERC generally rejected the filings as “patently” deficient.

On December 5, 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) granted a petition for rehearing en banc of an opinion it issued on August 2, 2019 (“August 2019 Opinion”) upholding FERC’s decision to conditionally approve the application of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company (“Transco”) to construct and operate the Atlantic Sunrise Project.  Petitioners challenge FERC’s use of tolling orders, which allow FERC to delay rehearing after granting a pipeline certificate, as impermissible under the Natural Gas Act and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.  Specifically, Petitioners argue that FERC’s use of tolling orders in pipeline certificate proceedings unlawfully require challengers to wait for the rehearing order to issue before obtaining judicial review, while the pipeline can proceed with eminent domain proceedings and pipeline construction following the issuance of FERC’s certificate order.     

On December 3, 2019, FERC denied a challenge filed by Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative, Inc. (“SMECO”) challenging Potomac Electric Power Company’s (“Pepco”) balance of prepaid pension assets (“Prepaid Pension Assets”) included in Pepco’s annual transmission rate update. FERC found that SMECO did not raise any serious doubt about the prudence of the Prepaid Pension Assets and that Pepco’s inclusion of a portion of the Prepaid Pension Assets amount in its rate base was reasonable.

On December 3, 2019, FERC issued an order in response to South Carolina Public Service Authority’s (“SCPSA”) October 8, 2019 request for a determination under section 36(c) of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) that certain project investments made over the term of the existing license for the Santee Cooper Project meet the criteria set forth in FPA section 36(b)(2), and therefore should be considered when the Commission establishes the length of the next license term for the Project.  The Commission’s December 3 order held that most of the prior investments identified in SCPSA’s request—approximately $90 million—met the statutory criteria and will be considered when the Commission sets the new license term in its future order on relicensing. 

On November 18, 2019, Anbaric Development Partners, LLC (“Anbaric”) filed a complaint against PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) alleging that PJM’s transmission interconnection procedures deny meaningful open access interconnection service to merchant transmission projects designed to connect remote generation resources, including offshore wind generation, to the PJM transmission system (“Transmission Platform Projects”). Anbaric requested that FERC: find that the PJM Tariff is unjust, unreasonable and unduly discriminatory or preferential because it does not provide Transmission Platform Projects the opportunity to obtain material interconnection rights; direct that Transmission Platform Projects be given the opportunity to obtain material interconnection rights; and order PJM to modify its Tariff to include a new category of Transmission Platform Projects to connect remote renewable generation facilities to the PJM Transmission System. Anbaric also requested that any order from FERC apply to all of Anbaric’s projects with positions in PJM’s interconnection queue as of the date of its complaint.

On November 21, 2019, FERC issued Opinion No. 569, adopting a revised methodology to determine whether an established rate of return on equity (“ROE”) is just and reasonable under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act. Additionally, FERC applied this new methodology to two complaint proceedings involving the base ROEs of Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) transmission owners (“TOs”). FERC found first that the MISO TOs’ ROE of 12.38 percent in the first complaint (“First Complaint”) was unjust and unreasonable, and ordered refunds based on this finding. FERC then found that the MISO TOs’ ROE of 9.88 percent in the second complaint (“Second Complaint”) fell within the range of presumptively just and reasonable ROEs, and subsequently dismissed the complaint. Commissioner Glick dissented in part, stating that refunds should have been ordered with regard to the Second Complaint.

On November 21, 2019, FERC’s Office of Enforcement (“OE”) released its thirteenth annual Report on Enforcement (“Report”) to provide an update about its activities during the last fiscal year (i.e., 12-months ending September 30, 2019; hereinafter “FY2019”). The Report provides an overview of, and statistics reflecting, the activities of OE’s Divisions of Investigations (“DOI”), Division of Audits and Accounting (“DAA”), Division of Analytics and Surveillance (“DAS”), and Division of Energy Market Oversight (“DEMO”).

On November 22, 2019, FERC issued three separate orders accepting, subject to further compliance, California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”), the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc.’s (“MISO”), and ISO New England, Inc.’s (“ISO-NE”) proposals to comply with FERC Order Nos. 841 and 841-A—addressing energy storage resources’ (“ESR”) participation in Regional Transmission Organization/Independent System Operator (“RTO/ISO”)-operated markets (see February 20, 2018 edition of the WER; April 10, 2019 edition of the WER; and May 22, 2019 edition of the WER for more background and context on Order No. 841). The November 22 orders, which follow FERC’s previous acceptance of PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s and Southwest Power Pool, Inc.’s storage participation proposals (see October 24, 2019 edition of the WER), found that the RTOs/ISOs generally complied with the requirements of Order No. 841. FERC ordered certain modifications to each RTO’s/ISO’s proposals, addressing metering and accounting practices, ESR bidding parameters, minimum size requirements, and transmission service charges, in addition to other issues. Commissioner McNamee issued separate opinions concurring with all three orders.