Yesterday, FERC issued a Policy Statement intended to further refine their policy for awarding financial incentives to transmission projects.  The Policy Statement was the Commission's response to the extensive, 42-page, 74-question Notice of Inquiry it issued in May of 2011.

The financial feeding frenzy has been scaled back for now and transmission owners have had their bag limits on consumer wallets reduced.

If you want the quick and dirty summary, here's FERC's press release.

If you want to know exactly what was in the Policy Statement, read on.

"In particular, the Commission: reframes its nexus test to focus more directly on the requirements of Order No. 679; expects applicants to take all reasonable steps to
mitigate the risks of a project, including requesting those incentives designed to reduce the risk of a project, before seeking an incentive return on equity (ROE) based on a project’s risks and challenges; provides general guidance that may inform applications for an incentive ROE based on a project’s risks and challenges; and promotes additional transparency with respect to the impacts of the Commission’s incentives policies."

1.  "The Commission will no longer rely on the routine/non-routine analysis adopted in BG&E as
a proxy for the nexus test."

What this means:  The nexus test requires an applicant for incentives to demonstrate a connection between the incentive(s) requested and the risks and challenges that a project faces.  Previously, once an applicant demonstrated that a project was not routine, the nexus test was satisfied and the project was deemed to face risks and challenges that merit incentives.  In the refined policy, FERC tosses out the routine/non-routine analysis and will require project applicants seeking incentives to demonstrate how the total package of incentives requested is tailored to address  demonstrable risks and challenges and must provide sufficient explanation and support to allow the  Commission to evaluate each element of the package and the interrelationship of all elements of the package. If some of the incentives would reduce the risks of the project, that fact will be taken into account in any
request for an enhanced ROE.  In short, applicants will have to do more to demonstrate risks and challenges that merit incentives.

2.  "The Commission expects incentives applicants to seek to reduce the risk of transmission investment not otherwise accounted for in its base ROE by using risk-reducing incentives before seeking an incentive ROE based on a project’s risks and challenges."

What this means:  A transmission's base ROE (the interest a project earns on its investment) is already set to account for the riskiness of transmission investment.  However, when a transmission project is riskier than a "normal" transmission project, it can be granted additional incentives to compensate for additional risk.  However, a project must request and utilize risk-reducing incentives before requesting an incentive ROE (extra interest) on a particular project.  A project owner must show how their project is riskier than "normal" and then how certain risk-reducing incentives will compensate for or reduce risk.  If the project is still so risky that risk has not adequately been reduced through the base ROE and risk reducing incentives, it may also request further risk compensation in the form of an enhanced ROE (extra interest).  The Commission is getting tougher judging risk and the need for a full spectrum of every available incentive.  No more using the same risk as the basis for every incentive.  Each incentive granted will reduce risk and a company would have to prove further risk that has not already been compensated for with other incentives in order to be awarded an incentive ROE.

3.   "Investments in the following types of transmission projects may face the types of risks and challenges that may warrant an incentive ROE based on the project’s risks and challenges that are not either already  accounted for in the applicant’s base ROE or could be addressed through risk-reducing incentives:

1. projects to relieve chronic or severe grid congestion that has had demonstrated cost impacts to consumers;
2. projects that unlock location constrained generation resources that previously had limited or no access to the wholesale electricity markets;
3. projects that apply new technologies to facilitate more efficient and reliable usage and operation of existing or new facilities."

What this means:  I think it's pretty self-explanatory.

4.  "The Commission will no longer consider requests under Order No. 679 for a stand-alone incentive ROE based on an applicant’s utilization of an advanced technology."

What this means:  No more incentive ROEs based solely on advanced technology, this will be considered as part of a project's risks and challenges (see 3 above).

5.    "Risks may be reduced through the risk-reducing incentives described in section II.B, or through mitigating costs by implementing best practices in their project management and procurement procedures. Applicants should consider taking measures tailored to mitigate the various risks associated with their transmission projects and to identify such measures
in their applications."

What this means:  Transmission Owners need to stop creating risks through poor management or bad choices and then asking to be compensated for it.

6.   "The Commission expects applicants for an incentive ROE based on a project’s risks and challenges to demonstrate that alternatives to the project have been, or will be, considered in either a relevant transmission planning process or another appropriate
forum. Such a showing should help identify the  demonstrable consumer benefits of the proposed project and its role in promoting a more efficient, reliable and cost-effective transmission system."

What this means:  No more PATHetic projects!  An applicant must demonstrate to the Commission how its project was compared to alternatives and found to be the most cost-effective solution.  Of course, a showing could be that an RTO/ISO has made this determination.  And since RTO/ISOs are nothing but industry cartels that will choose the projects of their favored incumbents and then make up a justification to support their choice afterward, this really doesn't solve the problem.  However, the transmission owner now has to convince the Commission that it was done properly.

7.   "The Commission expects applicants for an incentive ROE based on a project’s risks and challenges to commit to limiting the application of the incentive ROE based on a project’s risks and challenges to a cost estimate."

What this means:  Any incentive ROE will only be applied to a project cost amount that was used to determine the project's cost effectiveness as evaluated by an RTO/ISO.  So, say a project is found to be superior to other alternatives at a certain price when evaluated by an RTO/ISO, and then is awarded an incentive ROE by FERC.  The project can no longer apply the incentive to amounts that go over budget.  Historically, projects have floated bogus cost estimates at RTOs in order to get projects approved, and then spent a lot more actually building the project, and collected extra interest on the overspend.  This situation perpetuated the "the more you spend, the more you make" scenario that has plagued transmission projects and is breaking consumers while unjustly enriching transmission owners and contractors.  The Commission also gives a nod to SPP's cost containment proposal submitted in comments as a reasonable example.

While these are generally positive changes, they don't go nearly far enough and completely fail to tackle the underlying problems with FERC's transmission incentives policy.  FERC has merely set the stage for another long, slow decline toward lazy rubber stamp approval of ridiculous incentive packages that cause consumer concern.  The PATH project was the impetus for the NOI and the refinement handed down yesterday.  How long before another PATH happens?

I'm not sure what happened between FERC's rather auspicious and ambitious beginning in issuing such a great NOI, and this Policy Statement that feels like a punt.  It could be that there was too much controversy among the Commissioners.  It could be that there was too much political pushback from a greedy industry.  And don't forget those personal visits to the Commissioners from transmission owning CEOs.  Whatever happened, it looks like the Commission lost their nerve and took what they feel is the easy way out.

See statements of Commissioners Norris and LaFleur here.  It's interesting that they didn't publish a statement from Commissioner Moeller, since he had plenty to say yesterday.  Maybe he's part of the problem.  Wellinghoff didn't have much to say about it, and Clark was not participating.

It seems like the Commission was afraid if they came down too hard on transmission incentives that they would stifle investment.  However, they have quite effectively managed to do just that with their Policy Statement.  Which transmission owner do you think is going to be brave enough to step into the void and be the first to apply for incentives under the refinement (which was effective yesterday, btw)?  Not a one of them.  They're all going to hang back and wait for someone else to poke the first stick into the lion's cage so they can begin the process of finding ways to work around well-intended changes in order to continue to unjustly enrich themselves building unnecessary transmission.

I guess if Congress really wants transmission incentive policy reform, they're going to have to do it themselves through amendments to the Energy Policy Act.  I can only wish them luck.

PATH never could resist having the last word in any argument, even if doing so burned PATH like a moth circling too close to an enticing flame.

PATH didn't disappoint today and filed a second "response" to the answer of one of the other parties to PATH's answer to protests of its abandonment filing at FERC.

Old Dominion Electric Cooperative filed an answer to PATH's answer last week pointing out that PATH was only remaining a "member" of PJM in order to collect an extra half a percentage point of interest over the amortization period.  Since PATH does not plan to own any transmission that would receive benefit from a PJM membership, the extra interest to be derived from this "membership" is just another way to gouge consumers without any corresponding benefit.  ODEC also pointed to PATH's ridiculous contention that its parent companies' memberships in PJM entitled PATH to receive this benefit.

What is it that PATH fails to understand here?  Sec. 219 of the Energy Policy Act directs FERC to "provide for incentives to each transmission utility or electric utility that joins a Transmission Organization."  Now that PATH's project is abandoned and PATH has no plans to own any other transmission, ever, PATH is no longer a "transmission utility or electric utility."  Therefore, PATH is no longer eligible to retain this incentive.  Does someone need to draw PATH a picture?  Any further answers or responses should include artwork, preferably in crayon.

In their "response" today, PATH rambles on accusing ODEC of conflating and confusing PATH's answer.  Fail!  Considering that I read the same thing in PATH's answer that ODEC did, chances are that the Commission will also read it that way, despite PATH's suicidal attempt today to rehabilitate its own bleary legal work.  And speaking of bleary legal work... who is the "Virginia Service Corporation Commission" that PATH mentioned in their "response" today?  Any parties here by that name?  Didn't think so.  Thanks for the laugh, PATH!  Watch out for that fire, it's hot!

That's the three foot tall slogan emblazoned on a bunch of new billboard ads in Ohio.

Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign has initiated the advertising campaign to make Ohio's FirstEnergy customers aware of how FirstEnergy is ripping them off by failing to pass on energy efficiency benefits and to generate consumer comments at the Public Utilities Commission.  Check out the campaign's website here.  The very observant may even get a deja vu feeling while reading ;-)

Read an article about the billboards where our lil' Coalfella whines about how unfair the campaign is.  Really?  FirstEnergy wants to whine about unfair right about now?  Ha ha ha ha.  Karma's a real bitch, boys!  Now sit back and watch how generating comments at PUCO is done.  You might want to take notes to use during your next little public tiff with AEP.

Ooops!  PJM's Terry Boston let the wind industry's scheming out of the bag yesterday at some "event" on fostering transmission investment and clean energy resources in the Southeast.

"The Bipartisan Policy Center is working with power industry representatives and plans to send recommendations early next year to President Barack Obama on transmission and electricity policy, the head of PJM Interconnection said Wednesday."

Say what?

According to this article in Platts, Boston said, "FERC's current rule on cost allocation of new transmission lines is to assign costs to those who benefit from the lines, but for interstate projects to move renewable resources through several states, some states may feel left out and that is a big challenge for the industry to address."

Left out?  Is that how the industry that stands to profit from long-distance transmission lines "for midwest wind" is going to color those states being used as a pass-through for these lines?  You're darn right we're going to feel "left out" when other states' renewable portfolio standards require us to give up our land for new rights-of-way and pay for construction of a transmission line that only benefits citizens of another state.  It's not going to happen, even if the lobbyists do whisper sweet nothings in Obama's ear while writing campaign contribution checks.  Bi-partisan, my eye!

Let's take a look at the people involved here.  While they may be politically bi-partisan, there's an even scarier partisanship going on here than anything the Democrats or Republicans could dream up.  It's all about the money, boys!  It's big business vs. the consumers they plan to rob blind.

John Jimison, a former US House of Representatives staffer and current managing director of Americans for a Clean Energy Grid:  Americans for a Clean Energy Grid is nothing but a front group for industry that stands to rake in the cash by turning the midwest into "the Saudi Arabia of wind" and shipping it to both coasts via $300B of new high-voltage transmission lines that we don't need, can't afford, and that will only serve to render the grid more fragile and vulnerable.  This front group is a transmission owner's dream$come$true because they've reined in the big environmental organizations to act as their lackeys to promote transmission development for "clean energy."  The environmental fantasy these patsys see fails to recognize that once this "green" grid is built (with consumer funds, remember that) it's going to transport fossil fueled energy because the grid is open access and "wind" won't be able to compete on a price basis.  Only through government subsidies and state mandates will costly "wind" power be viable.  This front group has been busy holding real old fashioned kool aid socials around the country.  In fact, we may have infiltrated one earlier this year ;-)  Just remember, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, check out the "sponsors" of these propaganda fests.

Former Congressman Rich Boucher:  Now employed as the "head" of energy lobbying firm Sidley Austin's "government strategies group."  Lobbyist.  Not "bi-partisan" but protecting the interests of his well-heeled energy company clients.

Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Curt Hebert:  Currently the Chief Executive Officer of Lexicon Strategy Group, LLC.  Lexicon Strategy Group " specializes in risk assessment and developing appropriate business strategies to mitigate the impact of adverse legislative and regulatory policies. Our legal team provides regulatory expertise to electric and gas clients for issues including exploration/production, generation, transmission, distribution and securities."  How do they do that?  "Coalition Building, Third Party Advocacy, Constituent Recruitment, Governmental Management (Federal and State), Federal and State Energy Policy Development,
Advocacy Campaigns."  You know, all the best front group propaganda techniques.

And, of course, the partisanship to the energy companies that own him of our dear friend Terry Boston from the PJM Cartel is already legendary.

Well, guess what, lobbyist friends?  The consumers who make up the 99% aren't on board with your money making schemes, and the states who currently control transmission siting approvals aren't on board with your attempts to usurp their authority, and guess what?  There's more of us than there are of you.  See you at the White House!

It's been so long you've probably forgotten all about FERC's Notice of Inquiry on Promoting Transmission Investment Through Pricing Reform.  Thankfully FERC hasn't.

The NOI, issued in May 2011, solicited public comment on FERC's policies for awarding financial incentives to transmission projects.  And the public responded.  FERC was deluged with hundreds of comments from elected officials, corporate beneficiaries of the incentives, trade groups, and most importantly an avalanche of comments from the most significant "stakeholders" of all -- you, the consumer who pays for the incentives.

Yesterday, FERC issued the agenda for its November 15 public meeting.  Item E-3 is expected to be the first word from the Commission on how incentives policy will be reformed.

If you submitted a comment, you will be served with a copy of the Commission's order after the meeting concludes.

The Commission may comment on the order during the meeting.  You may watch a webcast of the meeting here.  Look under "News and Commission Meetings" to find the link to the video.

And pat yourself on the back... it's time to harvest the fruit of citizen action!

Although FERC rules prohibit an answer to a protest, PATH has 121 million reasons to ignore the rule and waste everyone's time simply rehashing and reiterating its original section 205 filing to collect its stranded $121M investment in its failed PATH project.  Exceptions can be made by the Commission if the answer provides new information that informs the Commission's decision.  Did PATH bother to provide any new information in its answer?  Perhaps they should have highlighted any actual "new" information to make it more easily detected among all the flimsy excuses and incorrect information.

PATH tells the Commission that although it has the ability to suspend proposed changes to existing rates, that PATH's changes to the Formula Rate (which is PATH's rate) aren't changes to its rate after all.  PATH also urges the Commission to hurry up and approve the changes to its Formula Rate without hearing because PATH has submitted a fraudulent 2013 Projected Transmission Revenue Requirement that they need to revise before January 1, 2013.

PATH believes the Commission should summarily reject protests that the company had control over the abandonment of its project, otherwise, PJM's authority will be undermined!  Would that be a bad thing, really?  PJM's imprudent actions brought about by its Project Mountaineer initiative to build new transmission to increase the use of coal-fired resources, and intended to provide significant profit to its favored incumbents, has just cost millions of consumers in its region a quarter billion dollars for the failed PATH project alone, not to mention the additional amount wasted on the also-cancelled MAPP project.  How much more will PJM's erroneous and failed initiatives be permitted to steal from struggling electric consumers if this costly failure is swept under the rug and not examined?

PATH believes that it is entitled to receive an extra half of a percent interest on its abandoned plant during the amortization period.  The extra interest is a reward for membership in PJM.  PATH states that it intends to remain a member until the consumers finish paying for its project, although it does not intend to own any transmission during that time.  PATH is simply maintaining its membership to receive the extra interest.  Is this really prudent?  PATH whines that the Commission should not discriminate against it for the business structure it voluntarily constructed.  "Revisiting the 50 basis point ROE adder would deny AEP and FirstEnergy an opportunity to apply the ROE-based incentive adder to their abandoned plant investment in the PATH Project merely because of the business structure they chose as a vehicle for fulfilling the construction obligations assigned to them by PJM."  Bingo!  Ya know what, PATH?  Life ain't fair.  You set up that business structure voluntarily because it benefited you and now you're stuck with it.  Quit your sniveling and take your lumps.  Your parent company memberships in PJM do not make PATH eligible to receive this incentive either.  That was really PATH-etic!

PATH has 121 million excuses for why its spending wasn't imprudent.  After asking the Commission to set the issue of prudence for a hearing wherein the prudence of its expenses can be debated, PATH wastes page after page trying to justify its spending on things like property and option purchases.  So, PATH, do you want a hearing or do you want the Commission to rule here?  It's hard to tell.  PATH falsely accuses protestors of not providing any "basis or support" for prudence challenges and proceeds to neglect to provide any "support or basis" for its own contentions that the spending was prudent, except for the ridiculous assertion that AEP and FE routinely buy property before a permit is received.  PATH holds its parent companies up as the industry standard in the face of evidence showing that one of these same parents doesn't buy land prior to the issuance of a permit.  So, was AEP lying to the Department of Energy earlier this year or are they lying to FERC now?  Inquiring minds want to know.

PATH attempts to color all its property purchases the same.  The reality is that PATH was split into two different companies, PATH-West Virginia (owned 50-50 by AEP and FE) and PATH-Allegheny (owned 100% by FE).  PATH-WV made minimal land purchases for substation sites and was slower to option property.  However PATH-Allegheny purchased lots of property that had nothing to do with substations and was quick to option property long before the permit process had even begun rolling.  This is a distinction that most likely has roots in the two different corporate philosophies behind the PATH project.  Now AEP gets to help FE hold its little doggie bag of imprudence, however.  Didn't your mommy ever tell you that you will be known by the company you keep, AEP?

PATH goes out of its way to admit that its property purchases in River's Edge were for the purposes of forcing the release of a conservation easement.  PATH goes into a long diatribe attempting to justify its imprudent property purchases as cost saving measures.  Yes, that's right, if PATH had not attempted to nullify a conservation easement in which Loudoun County had invested taxpayer funding, it would have cost more to re-route the line around it (using the most destructive route possible in an attempt to make releasing the conservation easement and allowing PATH's preferred route look preferable).  This same theme continues in flimsy justifications for other purchases.  PATH claims if it had not bought certain properties, it would have had to route its line around them in order to avoid homes or other obstacles.  Is this what PATH told landowners?  That if they didn't prefer to voluntarily sell their property that PATH would simply route their line around the property?  No, of course not.  PATH told landowners that if they didn't sell voluntarily that the company would take the property by eminent domain or simply "run the line right over the top of your house."  So, now PATH wants to test its word against that of thousands of landowners?  Isn't this going to be fun?

PATH also points out to the Commission that other abandoned projects that requested much, much smaller recoveries were not RTO-ordered projects.  So, I guess PATH's point must be that when there is some risk to the transmission owner that spending is prudently curtailed.  However, in PATH's case it was a giant, bleeding spend-a-thon because PATH believed that ratepayers were on the hook for all of it.  Now when the specter of shareholders being responsible for some or all of PATH's spending spree rears its ugly head, all of a sudden the amount of spending becomes a big deal.  Don't you just love karma?

So, now it's up to the FERC Commissioners to wade through the facts presented and make a decision that ensures that PATH's rates are just and reasonable.

The Chairman of the Maryland PSC isn't accepting PJM's flimsy excuses for conducting secret meetings to revise the MOPR.  Nazarian's latest letter to PJM says:

"We also are struggling to understand how the process now under way can constitute an appropriate stakeholder process for tariff revisions as significant as these. Stakeholders Manual 34, which authorizes "User Groups" to debate a specific market design problem (see Paragraph 5.5 at p. 14), still requires published notice to all members that the process is to take place, requires that other interested stakeholders be permitted to participate, and requires PJM to post agendas and  summaries of meetings on the PJM webpage. None of  this happened during the secret negotiations. Moreover, the "ad hoc stakeholder group" discussions took place over a period of at least three months - as we  understand it, discussions began in June and continued well into September- during which the invited parties had the opportunity to get detailed input from PJM and the IMM and to analyze different options in depth. The rest of us get less than half that time to understand and analyze and react to a complicated set of revisions that were reduced to proposed tariff pages only last Friday. Put another way, the parties to the exclusive negotiations ran out most of the clock and have left the rest of us to scramble against a deadline driven only by PJM's and the proponents' self-interested desire to have these changes in place for the May 2013 Base Residual Auction."

New Jersey's Director of Rate Counsel, Stefanie Brand, also throws a few logs on the PIG roasting fire.  Her letter gets extra points for snarky use of quotation marks.

"As we understand it, the proposed MOPR changes arose from dissatisfaction on the part of certain suppliers that the previous changes to MOPR, which are currently on appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, were insufficient to thwart what they viewed as "outcomes that are inconsistent with a  competitive market." These suppliers then engaged other select PJM members in confidential discussions regarding changes to the MOPR to address their concerns. At some point, PJM itself and the Independent Market Monitor (IMM) were brought into this process and, in joining it, agreed not to inform any other interested PJM members of the discussion or invite them to participate without the agreement of the other group members. Eventually, and apparently with the group's agreement, PJM reached out to a select group of "load" interests to participate. Their participation, too, was  specifically conditioned on agreeing to maintain the secrecy of these discussions. Not surprisingly, the proposal that resulted from this closed-door process addressed the specific concerns of the PJM members who participated in the discussions, at the expense of the interests of the PJM members who were intentionally excluded. Indeed, the discussions were aimed at  developing "solutions" designed specifically to  exacerbate, not resolve, the matters of concern to the excluded PJM members."

and

"...certain members were invited into the process by PJM itself. PJM should not be choosing which members are allowed at the table, particularly when the invitation comes with a requirement that the process be kept secret from other interested members."

and

"That PJM views the interests of 27 large users as more worthy of consideration than the millions of customers represented by the consumer advocates underscores the perception that PJM favors the interests of certain members over others."

and

"While packaged as a series of exemptions and criteria, the intent is obvious: to thwart the actions of those States to address capacity shortages and implement policy judgments about resource choices."

and

"PJM has no business involving itself in efforts by the
incumbent suppliers to control the "competitive" market in which they participate."

And finishes up threatening to "...pursue all remedies to prevent PJM and the proposal's proponents from  usurping the States' role under the FPA."

Update:  The Maryland Office of People's Counsel has also written to PJM.  In their letter the MPC requests that PJM throw the "secret" proposal out the window and start fresh with all stakeholders.  MPC also says:

"MPC is in the process of evaluating the proposal and forming positions on it.  However, it appears that the proposal is founded on the notion that certain actions that  result in new capacity are "legitimate" and some are not. PJM should focus its attention on administering the electricity markets for the resources that participate in those markets and not on deciding which actions are legitimate and which are not.  Furthermore, from the perspective of customers who rely on electricity to meet their daily household and business needs, there is nothing illegitimate about a State directing utilities in its jurisdiction to take action that results in new generation that the State believes is in the long-term best interest of that State. While such an action may affect markets, the creation of rules to prevent such action is not administering the market but attempting to assure certain outcomes. PJM's role should not be to assure price levels or targets."

Well, PJM is certainly scoring some important collaboration points with the states, isn't it?  Just more of the same old lobbying and influence being exerted at the PJM cartel by their profit-hungry power company "members."  This time it's especially egregious because the supposedly "independent" market monitor also jumped aboard the S.S. PIG.  The market monitor probably isn't playing favorites among PJM's unruly children.  However, the market monitor refuses to admit that its market is a complete and utter failure that ends up costing millions of electric consumers extra money every month.

PJM's "market" is supposed to bring you low cost electricity.  Generation and transmission is supposed to be driven by "market" need.  Because the market is not properly stimulating new generation entries, states such as New Jersey and Maryland are paying some of the highest electricity prices in the country.  Instead of waiting for the market to prompt new generation in those states, PJM is instead jumping the gun to provide "low cost" electricity to those areas by importing its incumbent PIG's existing generation via new high voltage transmission lines such as TrAIL, PATH, Susquehanna-Roseland and MAPP.  The "market" never had a chance to work.

New generation in New Jersey and Maryland will be paid for by the consumers in those states.  Transmission lines are paid for by all PJM consumers, including those in states far from New Jersey and Maryland.  This costs you money, if you don't live in New Jersey or Maryland.  However, the big Ohio Valley generators are currently sitting on a glut of generation they can't sell as demand continues to tank.  Companies like AEP and FirstEnergy are in big financial trouble if they can't find new markets for their dirty, coal-fired generation.  FirstEnergy recently scaled back one of its plants because there was no market for it.  Last week, FirstEnergy laid off a whole bunch of employees.  Tough times, FirstEnergy?  Awww... that's too bad :-)

New Jersey and Maryland got tired of waiting for PJM's market to work, so they came up with their own laws to encourage the building of new generation in their own states.  This upset the incumbent generation PIGs, who feared losing a profitable, captive market for their dirty product.  So, the PIGs changed the MOPR (Minimum
Offer Price Rule) to prevent new generation from being built.  The states fought vigorously, but lost when FERC agreed with PJM.  However, even under the new rules, New Jersey's and Maryland's new plants cleared PJM's RPM auction this year.  In response, the greedy little PIGS got together to hold secret meetings to craft even more changes to the MOPR, hoping to stop new generation for good.  Now they've been caught and called out for their scheming.

PJM's "market" doesn't work because its incumbent PIGS won't allow it to work.  Consumers deserve better.

I've been following a blog written by an experienced and well-respected utility regulation attorney that has been doing a monthly series on regulatory capture.  This week, I finally read the last article in the series.

“REGULATORY CAPTURE” III — AVOIDING AND ESCAPING provides useful advice for captured regulators like West Virginia's Public Service Commission and the government officials who perpetuate this scenario.  Most importantly, it provides a road map for affected citizen consumers to create their own plan of action to effect change in Charleston and put a stop to the practices that hold them captive to out-of-state utility money-making schemes.

Read the first two installments in the regulatory capture series here, along with other interesting topics.  Time well spent!

Why does my office smell like french fries today?  It must be because I'm camped out at McDonald's... again.  The number and duration of electric outages has been increasing lately.

Over a cup of camp stove coffee this morning, I was treated to front page quotes from my favorite useless FirstEnergy flack:

"We have multiple disciplines for multiple different jobs just ready and waiting to go," Meyers said. "I know you'll begin to see them move into certain areas. Exactly where and when, I can't tell you, because we still need to see where the need will be, but we're pretty confident that we'll be in need."

"Pretty confident that we'll be in need?"  That's probably because continued scrimping on system maintenance has once again caused outages, and those outages are accepted and expected by the utility.

FirstEnergy is charging you money every month under the guise of maintaining their system.  But if they don't spend the entire amount they collect, it gets added to the corporate bottom line to increase quarterly dividends.  FirstEnergy will whine that they spend more than they collect every once in a while to repair storm damage.  But, is anyone keeping track of this to true up what's collected with what's spent?  No, of course not.  And when a storm causes extensive damage, FirstEnergy will go and whine to the WV PSC that they need to collect extra to cover their storm expenses... and the PSC usually grants their request.

Therefore, FirstEnergy increases profits and shareholder dividends by failing to spend money maintaining its system, and maintenance failure causes unnecessary outages.  FirstEnergy is throwing consumers under the bus in order to bow and scrape at the throne of profit.

P.S.  My power is back on.  I guess Todd didn't want to stop by and help us eat our melted ice cream after all.

PATH wants FERC to consolidate its recently-filed request to recover capital in abandoned plant with outstanding Challenges to their expenses in 2009 and 2010 because "administrative efficiency strongly supports consolidation of all issues in Docket Nos. ER09-1256-000 and ER12-2708-000."

The same way oil and water mix to create koolaid, I'm sure.  Read the Motion Opposing Consolidation filed October 29.

In typical PATH fashion, the filing wasn't properly served on parties and wasn't properly docketed in ER12-2708-000, so here's your unofficial notice.