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On July 3, 2013, FERC’s Office of Enforcement issued a Staff Notice of Alleged Violations with regard to the deaths of two fishermen in relation to Erie Boulevard Hydropower, L.P.’s (“Erie”) operation of its Oswego River Project, located in the City of Oswego, New York.  The notice indicates that FERC staff has preliminarily determined that Erie violated FERC’s hydropower licensing regulations relating to ensuring public safety in connection with the project, alleging eight separate violations.  The violations include the failure to sound a warning within a reasonable time, safety device failures, and safety protocol omissions.

In an unusual move, on July 9, 2013, FERC announced that the Office of Enforcement will seek information from certain unnamed natural gas marketers concerning those marketers’ natural gas sales activities.  These efforts appear to be connected with the Commission’s November 12, 2012 Notice of Inquiry (“NOI”) on Enhanced Natural Gas Market Transparency in Docket No. RM13-1-000 (see November 16, 2012 edition of the WER), and do not appear to be enforcement actions against the companies from whom information will be sought.

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013, FERC issued an order denying rehearing (“Order Denying Rehearing”) of two prior orders related to the Bonneville Power Administration’s (“Bonneville”) transmission service curtailment practices under a protocol currently named the “Oversupply Management Protocol” (“OMP”).  In those prior orders FERC: (1) reaffirmed its authority under Federal Power Act (“FPA”) Section 211A and its use of  that authority order to remedy Bonneville’s unduly discriminatory practices against wind generation; and (2) directed Bonneville to significantly revise its proposed oversupply curtailment policies and cost allocation mechanisms in order to ensure comparability and eliminate undue discrimination (see January 8, 2013 edition of the WER).  The Order Denying Rehearing again affirmed FERC’s authority to act under FPA Section 211A and further clarified the revisions Bonneville must make to its OMP schema. 

On June 20, 2013, the Commission accepted the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) compliance filing concerning the progress of its Find, Fix, Track and Report (“FFT”) program, and approved certain enhancements offered by NERC aimed at improving processing time for FFTs and allowing more possible violations to be processed as FFTs.

On June 20, 2013, FERC conditionally granted the Western Electricity Coordinating Council’s (“WECC”) petition to establish a separate, independent company to serve as the reliability coordinator within the Western Interconnection.  Once established, the new company, RC Company, will take over as the reliability coordinator from WECC and assume responsibility for the WECC Interchange Tool.  FERC’s final approval of the petition will rest upon review of RC Company’s final governance documents.

On June 7, 2013, FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement (“Settlement”) with Enerwise Global Technologies, Inc. (“Enerwise”) for violations of the PJM Interconnection, LLC(“PJM”) Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) and the Commission’s Anti-Manipulation Rule 18 C.F.R. § 1c.2 (2012).  Enerwise committed these violations in connection with its activities as a Curtailment Service Provider (“CSP”) in PJM, and specifically, its demand response activities with one customer, the Maryland Stadium Authority (“MSA”).

On June 20, 2013, FERC issued an order denying requests for rehearing (“Order Denying Rehearing”) of its September 20, 2012 Order (“September 20 Order”) regarding Idaho Power Company’s (“Idaho Power”) proposal to curtail purchases from Qualifying Facilities (“QFs”) that met certain characteristics.  On rehearing, FERC reiterated that if Idaho Power’s proposal were to be approved by the Idaho Public Utilities Commission (“Idaho PUC”), it would be inconsistent with the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 and FERC’s regulations.  (See September 23, 2012 edition of the WER.) 

On June 7, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (“Seventh Circuit”) upheld the majority of a FERC order that approved the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc.’s (“MISO”) cost allocation methodology for multi-value projects (“MVPs”) (see October 24, 2011 edition of the WER).  The Seventh Circuit affirmed the majority of FERC’s approval of MISO’s MVP cost allocation, dismissed one issue, and remanded another back to FERC for further analysis.

On June 5, 2013, FERC issued an order conditionally granting the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”) petition for declaratory order, allowing CAISO to force certain power sellers, including JP Morgan Ventures Energy Corp. (“JP Morgan”), to reimburse CAISO electricity distributers for overpayments caused by a flaw in CAISO’s bid cost recovery calculation.  In the order, FERC approved CAISO’s resettlements spanning from the date that CAISO had first implemented its flawed bid cost recovery mechanism, April 1, 2009, until the effective date of the tariff revision which addressed the calculation’s defect, March 25, 2011.  The resettlement amount for the entire period is expected to total $52 million in reimbursement costs.