By Rich Heidorn Jr.
A group of citizens groups has dusted off a forgotten provision of the 1978 Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act that it said requires FERC to provide public funding for interventions before the agency.
In a filing Monday, watchdog group Public Citizen and more than two dozen environmental and public interest groups called on FERC to create an Office of Public Participation, as they say was required by the act (RM16-9).
The act appropriated $2.4 million for compensating intervenors in fiscal year 1981, before FERC switched to its current funding mechanism, based on fees on industry participants.
“I don’t know how much money we’re talking about here,” said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen’s energy program, adding that $2.4 million would be worth about $6.5 million now, adjusted for inflation. That, he said, does not include funding for the office’s staff.
Slocum said it’s unclear why the office was never created, speculating that FERC was unenthusiastic about complying and distracted by implementing other aspects of the act.
Although the Federal Power Act has been revised several times since 1978, he said, Congress never changed the public participation provision. “It just kind of dropped off the radar screen,” he said.
He said Public Citizen decided to file the petition to force compliance after informal entreaties to FERC commissioners failed to result in any action. “We’ve known about it for a long time,” he said.
The filing requests the commission to initiate a rulemaking to implement the directive.
“An Office of Public Participation is needed now, more than ever,” the petition states, noting the changes in the industry since 1978. “More ratemaking is decided in FERC-jurisdictional markets than in state utility regulatory commissions. But while state utility commissions often feature robust procedures and public money dedicated for household consumer representation, no equivalent exists at FERC, leaving entities representing the interests of households at a severe financial disadvantage compared to interests representing the owners of power plants, power marketers and transmission owners.”
FERC declined to comment.
Providing funding for ratepayer representation has also been an issue in some RTOs.
Last year, MISO rejected a request by the Public Consumer Advocates sector for $200,000 to help cover its legal costs in a fight over transmission owners’ return on equity. (See MISO to Consumer Sector: No Money for You.)
Last week, FERC approved PJM’s funding of the Consumer Advocates of PJM States. (See related story, FERC Approves PJM Funding of Consumer Advocates.)
