By Rich Heidorn Jr.

GROTON, Conn. — States and federal regulators need to keep consumers in mind when picking jurisdictional fights over control of the electric industry, Federal Energy Regulatory Commissioner Tony Clark said last week.

“We can’t have a war between FERC and the states on some of these issues and get consumers stuck in the middle,” he said in a keynote speech to the New England Energy Conference and Exposition on Wednesday.

“There has been an almost soft form of reregulation in parts of the market. We should acknowledge that that’s happening. We should also acknowledge that that may have an impact on other goals,” he said.

“We don’t want to be caught in the worst of all worlds, which in my mind is having just high enough capacity prices where we get everybody pretty darn well mad at us — we’ve got the congressional delegations mad at us; we’ve got governors mad at us; we’ve got consumer advocates made at us — and yet at the same time [the prices are] set at such a point that they may be being undermined by other things that are going on, so you’re not getting the investment that those prices would otherwise encourage because you have other state or local public policies that are undercutting that or maybe suppressing prices in some way.”

Capacity market prices have prompted protests in New York and New England. (See LaFleur Rejects Further Review of 2014 ISO-NE Capacity Auction.)

In addition, federal courts have been refereeing jurisdictional fights. Courts have struck down on constitutional grounds efforts by Maryland and New Jersey to sign contracts with new generators. (See Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Demand Response Appeal.)

FERC also has tangled with officials in New York over the contract for the Ginna nuclear plant. (See related story, NYPSC Challenges FERC Jurisdiction over Ginna Contract.)

And FERC Chairman Norman Bay has warned states seeking to implement rights of first refusal on transmission development that they may be interfering with interstate commerce. (See FERC Rejects Rehearing Request on SPP Order 1000 Filing.)

Clark pleaded for a cease fire. “There’s plenty of tools that FERC has and there’s plenty of tools that states have to go to war with each other,” he said. “In my mind it’s … a game you can’t win. So you can’t play it.”

Clark also talked about the commission’s unenviable role regarding the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan.

“It’s not our rule,” he said. “And yet just about every potential negative impact that folks have brought up are things that are squarely within FERC’s wheelhouse. Whether it’s related to the need for infrastructure siting because of the push towards natural gas; whether it’s potential market issues that come up at the seams in markets …; whether it’s reliability issues, which in certain regions of the country we’re very concerned about — all of those are squarely within FERC’s wheelhouse.

“So whether we want the issue in front of us or not, the issue wants us.”