Court Again Rejects FERC’s Effort To Allot Cost Of Power Lines In PJM
July 01, 2014
A federal appeals court for the second time rejected the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s attempt to allot the cost of high-voltage power lines in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. The court ruled 2-1 that FERC has failed to provide justification for why utilities in the western portion of PJM’s footprint in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic region should be required to contribute to the cost of power lines benefiting the region’s eastern side. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling sends the order back to FERC, as the judges said that utilities in the western region of PJM’s territory in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana are unlikely to obtain significant amounts of power from the dozen transmission projects in question, which will cost about $2.7 billion. The decision comes five years after the same utilities and the Illinois Commerce Commission asked the court to vacate an earlier cost allocation plan in PJM for high-voltage power lines that FERC approved in 2007. The court remanded that order in 2009, and the agency issued an order on remand that was at the center of the latest court ruling.