By Amanda Durish Cook

Organization of MISO States members will vote via email on whether to file comments in the Independent Market Monitor’s complaint over PJM’s pseudo-tie proposal (EL17-62).

At an OMS Board of Directors meeting April 20, staffer Marcus Hawkins said if the group agrees to file comments, the focus would be on MISO generators that pseudo-tie into PJM. The Monitor asked FERC on April 6 to eliminate pseudo-ties. (See Pseudo-Tie Feud Rises as Patton, NYISO Protest PJM Proposal.)

The OMS Seams Working Group has been discussing the filling with Monitor David Patton, Hawkins said, and the group could draft comments by this week. If approved by members, the comments by the working group would be edited by the board before they are filed at FERC in early May.

“Right now, it looks like the group is leaning towards supporting some of the issues Dr. Patton has raised in his complaint,” Hawkins said.

Closed Session Procedure Outlined

OMS members have drafted a procedure for entering closed sessions during public meetings.

Sam Mabry of the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff said OMS’s governance group has suggested that notification of closed session requests be circulated a few days before the meeting with an explanation of the need. If an objection is raised, the OMS Executive Committee would decide by simple majority if the topic deserves a closed session, OMS members decided.

OMS President and Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Angela Weber said the new notice system need not be used to discuss personnel matters and commercially sensitive materials, which are already closed session matters per organization bylaws. Weber also agreed that closed sessions should extend to discussions covered by attorney-client privilege after Texas Public Utility Commissioner Ken Anderson raised the issue.

David Carr of the Mississippi Public Service Commission pointed out that OMS bylaws state that such information “may” be covered in closed session, so even those topics do not require closed sessions in all cases.

Weber said OMS is only looking to clear up when a closed session is used to discuss “gray matters.”

“I was uncomfortable with motions [for closed session] during meetings,” Weber explained.

Weber raised the need for a more specific closed session procedure after expressing concern in February that OMS used closed sessions too liberally to discuss FERC filings. (See Commissioners Ask MISO to Share Tx Project Cost Data.)