How state-sponsored planning can fit with FERC’s capacity markets.
Craig R. Roach, Frank Mossburg, and Vincent Musco are, respectively, president, managing director, and project director at Boston Pacific Company, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in the electricity and natural gas businesses. Roach was an expert witness in the two federal court cases referenced here, and Boston Pacific managed the Maryland Capacity RFP.
Two cases decided recently in federal court have reignited the long-standing debate over the jurisdictional boundary between federal and state regulation of the electricity business.1 The plaintiffs in both cases argued that because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had created a capacity market within the PJM regional transmission organization, the states were preempted from playing their traditional role in resource planning. In a companion argument, they claimed such state action would unduly restrict interstate commerce.