Dive Brief:
- Environmental and consumer advocates have urged the Supreme Court to consider an appeal of FERC Order 745, arguing the decision to vacate FERC's authority over demand response hurts markets and upends a well-understood regulatory environment.
- Public advocates in six jurisdictions joined environmental groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council in filing the brief.
- The Obama Administration filed an appeal to the Supreme Court in January, asking it to affirm FERC's authority regulate demand response, but it could be months before the justices make a decision on the request.
Dive Insight:
Consumer and environmental advocates are asking the nation's top court to find that FERC has the authority to regulate demand response, arguing that a decision by the D.C. Circuit Court last year "is irreconcilable with this Court’s precedents."
The brief was filed by advocates in in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, along with the Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, The Sierra Club, and Citizens Utility Board.
The decision to vacate 745, the groups said, "disrupts widely-settled understandings of the allocation of regulatory authority over the Nation’s electric power system; and it defies Congress’s recent and specific directive that demand response resources’ participation in the wholesale energy markets to which Order 745 applies should be encouraged."
"The adverse practical consequences of the court’s ruling are far-reaching," the groups said.
Order 745 covered demand response in energy markets, but the fallout from the D.C. Circuit decision has extended well beyond. FirstEnergy subsequently filed a court challenge to PJM's use of demand response in capacity markets.
