E&E News Quotes Jennifer Mersing on Pressure on FERC to Act to Address State Energy Subsidization Policies

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Attorney Jennifer Mersing was quoted in E&E News in an article titled “Latest court ruling favoring states ratchets pressure on FERC.” The article discusses a late-July federal court decision that dismissed a challenge to New York state subsidies for three nuclear power plants.

The decision was the third in a month in which a federal court affirmed state policies favoring certain types of power generation, over the objections of independent power producers that the policies encroach on the operation of wholesale power markets, which are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

A similar, earlier federal court decision on a challenge to a solicitation for renewable energy in Connecticut was significant for being the first in which a federal court discussed the limits of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hughes v. Talen Energy Marketing LLC, in which the court struck down a Maryland effort to promote new gas-fired generation on the grounds that the state strayed into federal regulators’ exclusive jurisdiction over wholesale electricity markets.

"All these decisions speak to limiting the impact of the Supreme Court's decision in Hughes and really giving space for states to encourage generation of their own choosing," Mersing said, although she also notes that the New York and Illinois decisions "emphasized that FERC has the authority to take action to correct the effect this is having on the wholesale power markets" and predicts further complaints being filed with FERC.

Read “Latest court ruling favoring states ratchets pressure on FERC,” published July 27, 2017. (Subscription required.)

For more background on the decision in Hughes v. Talen  see Jennifer Mersing in Law360 and UtilityDive on Hughes V. Talen Supreme Court Decision and Law360 Quotes Jennifer Mersing on 2016 Supreme Court Rulings Favorable to FERC.

Jennifer Mersing has also written for our Renewable + Law® blog on the earlier federal court decisions in Illinois and Connecticut.  

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