On October 17, 2019, FERC amended its Policy Statement on Consultation with Indian Tribes in Commission Proceedings (“Policy Statement”) by adding a specific reference to treaty rights, noting that the Commission addresses input from tribes in its National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”) documents, and adding consultation with Alaska Native Corporations to the Policy Statement.

On August 29, 2019, FERC issued a final rule revising 18 C.F.R. § 385.2001(a) and requiring that all physical filings and submissions to be delivered to FERC, other than those sent via the U.S. Postal Service (“USPS”) are to be sent to FERC’s off-site security screening facility in Rockville, Maryland (see September 17 edition of the WER).  The rule was scheduled to go into effect on November 4, 2019, 60 days after its publication in the Federal Register.

On October 17, 2019, pursuant to the America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) of 2018, FERC issued a guidance document for applicants seeking preliminary permits or licenses for closed-loop pumped storage projects at abandoned mine sites.  It also issued a list of 230 existing nonpowered federal dams that FERC—along with the Secretaries of the Interior, Army, and Agriculture (collectively, the Secretaries)—determined have the greatest potential for nonfederal hydropower development.

On September 19, 2019, one Independent and four Democratic Senators wrote a letter to FERC which expressed concerns over recent actions taken by FERC and which directed a series of questions to FERC regarding the “apparent erosion” of FERC’s role in preventing fraud and manipulation in U.S. energy and financial markets (see October 3, 2019 edition of the WER). The concerns expressed by the senators related to (i) the decline in the number of civil penalty actions initiated by FERC; (ii) the closing of FERC’s Division of Energy Market Oversight (“DEMO”), and (iii) FERC’s ending its policy on issuing Notices of Alleged Violations (“NAVs”) regarding investigations.

On November 5, 2019, the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources (“Committee”) held a hearing to consider the nomination of James Danly as a FERC Commissioner. Mr. Danly, currently FERC’s general counsel, was nominated to fill the vacancy on the Commission left by the passing of FERC Chairman Kevin McIntyre in January of this year.

On November 5 and 6, 2019, FERC staff held a two-day workshop at its headquarters in Washington, DC on technologies that increase the capacity, efficiency, or reliability of transmission facilities.  Panelists and FERC staff discussed technologies that are currently used in transmission planning and operations, challenges associated with the deployment of grid-enhancing technologies, and regulatory actions that might promote increased adoption of these technologies going forward. A formal notice requesting written comments will soon be issued. 

On November 1, 2019 FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement between its Office of Enforcement (“OE”), the regional reliability entity Texas Reliability Entity, Inc. (“Texas RE”), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), and Calpine Corporation (“Calpine”), related to Calpine’s alleged violations of NERC reliability standards governing maintenance and testing of batteries and other protection systems, as well as provisions of the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) Tariff requiring entities to report planned and unplanned generator outages. As part of the settlement, Calpine neither admitted nor denied the alleged violations, but agreed to pay civil penalties of $375,000 to Texas RE and $25,000 to the United States Treasury, and to undergo compliance monitoring.

On October 24, 2019, FERC denied Harbor Cogeneration Company, LLC’s (“Harbor”) complaint alleging that Southern California Edison Company (“SoCal Edison”) misclassified certain interconnection facilities contrary to FERC’s Order No. 2003 and violated SoCal Edison’s Transmission Owner Tariff (“TO Tariff”) in directly assigning the facility costs to Harbor without FERC “approval.” FERC denied the complaint and rejected Harbor’s request for refunds, reasoning that the charges constituted valid filed rates notwithstanding that FERC did not use the word “approve” in its delegated letter orders, and that, therefore, the charges were lawfully imposed regardless of any alleged conflicts with FERC interconnection pricing policies.

On October 28, 2019, the Attorneys General of California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island (collectively “State AGs”) wrote to FERC to discuss opportunities for the State AGs and FERC to work cooperatively to promote state-level clean energy policies that benefit consumers and enhance grid reliability. The State AGs expressed an “urgent need” for further action to address climate change’s “massive” environmental, health, and economic harms in their states, and noted that the Commission’s actions related to market design, natural gas siting, and grid reliability significantly impact each state’s ability to achieve their clean energy goals.