On April 23, 2010, FERC accepted a filing by ISO New England Inc. (“ISO-NE”) and the New England Power Pool Participants Committee (“NEPOOL”) to revise market rules for the ISO-NE Forward Capacity Market (“FCM”).  The Commission set several contested issues for paper hearing, but allowed ISO-NE to implement all of the proposed changes for the upcoming auction in August.

On April 23, 2010, FERC conditionally approved the New York Independent System Operator’s (“NYISO”) proposed revisions to their Market Administration and Control Area Services Tariff (“Services Tariff”).  Specifically, NYISO’s proposed revisions dealt with the issue of “Customer Compliance with Laws, Regulations and Orders.” 

On April 19, 2010, the Southwestern Power Pool, Inc. (“SPP”) filed proposed revisions to its Open Access Transmission Tariff (“OATT”) to include a new transmission upgrade cost allocation method called the “Highway/Byway” method, which moves away from allocating costs on a zonal basis to a broader SPP-wide basis. 

On April 13, 2010, FERC found that PJM Interconnection L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) open access transmission tariff (“OATT”) does not preclude PJM from designating Primary Power to build projects as part of PJM’s regional transmission expansion plan (“RTEP”).  FERC’s decision will allow Primary Power, a merchant transmission company, to build their Grid Plus transmission project (“Grid Plus”) and recover the cost of the project through cost-based rates so long as the project is accepted into the RTEP. 

In an effort to ease the growing uproar regarding the issuance of its March 18, 2010 Policy Statement on Penalty Guidelines (“Policy Statement”), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) on April 15, 2010, announced that it will suspend the application of its Policy Statement and give interested entities a broader opportunity to comment before issuing a final order and putting the guidelines into effect.

On April 15, 2010, FERC issued an Order on Clarification denying a request that the Commission interpret its market-based rate affiliate restrictions to permit sharing of employees who are neither transmission function employees nor marketing function employees.  FERC also issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing a revision to the market-based rate affiliate restrictions to reflect the clarification provided in its Order on Clarification.

On April 15, 2010 the Division of Energy Market Oversight from the Office of Enforcement presented their State of the Markets Report 2009 (the “Report”) at the FERC monthly meeting.