Pulling An Inside Job

Deck: 

PJM loses luster in a squabble over market monitoring.

Fortnightly Magazine - May 2007
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The bottom fell out in the hearing room at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on April 5 when witness Joseph Bowring let it slip that, yes, he might well prefer more independence from his employer in his role as chief of the market monitoring unit (MMU) at the PJM Interconnection.

But he almost lost his chance, as he had to ask for extra time from Steve Harvey, the FERC staffer in charge of sounding the buzzer when each witness reached the end of his allotted time.

MR. HARVEY: Dr. Bowring, your time is up.

MR. BOWRING: Okay. Can I just make two points that I wanted to get to?

MR. HARVEY: Very quickly.

FERC CHAIRMAN JOSEPH KELLIHER: Very quickly.

MR. BOWRING: The first is that my experience — and it’s in my written document, as well — my experience at PJM is that we have not been permitted to be independent and there have been — we’ve seen significant issues with conflicts with PJM, and where there were conflicts, our independence has at times — not all the time, obviously — but has, at times, been compromised. (See, Review of Market Monitoring Policies, FERC Docket No. AD07-8, Technical Conference, April 5, 2007, transcript, p. 75.)

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