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TITLE 16 >
CHAPTER
12 > SUBCHAPTER
II > § 824d

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§ 824d. Rates and charges; schedules; suspension of new
rates; automatic adjustment clauses

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(a) Just and reasonable rates

All rates and charges made, demanded, or received by any
public utility for or in connection with the transmission or sale of electric
energy subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, and all rules and
regulations affecting or pertaining to such rates or charges shall be just and
reasonable, and any such rate or charge that is not just and reasonable is
hereby declared to be unlawful.

(b) Preference or advantage unlawful

No public utility shall, with respect to any transmission or
sale subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission,

(1) make or grant any undue preference or advantage to any person or
subject any person to any undue prejudice or disadvantage, or

(2) maintain any unreasonable difference in rates, charges, service,
facilities, or in any other respect, either as between localities or as between
classes of service.

(c) Schedules

Under such rules and regulations as the Commission may
prescribe, every public utility shall file with the Commission, within such time
and in such form as the Commission may designate, and shall keep open in
convenient form and place for public inspection schedules showing all rates and
charges for any transmission or sale subject to the jurisdiction of the
Commission, and the classifications, practices, and regulations affecting such
rates and charges, together with all contracts which in any manner affect or
relate to such rates, charges, classifications, and services.

(d) Notice required for rate changes

Unless the Commission otherwise orders, no change shall be
made by any public utility in any such rate, charge, classification, or service,
or in any rule, regulation, or contract relating thereto, except after sixty
days’ notice to the Commission and to the public. Such notice shall be given by
filing with the Commission and keeping open for public inspection new schedules
stating plainly the change or changes to be made in the schedule or schedules
then in force and the time when the change or changes will go into effect. The
Commission, for good cause shown, may allow changes to take effect without
requiring the sixty days’ notice herein provided for by an order specifying the
changes so to be made and the time when they shall take effect and the manner in
which they shall be filed and published.

(e) Suspension of new rates; hearings; five-month period

Whenever any such new schedule is filed the Commission shall
have authority, either upon complaint or upon its own initiative without
complaint, at once, and, if it so orders, without answer or formal pleading by
the public utility, but upon reasonable notice, to enter upon a hearing
concerning the lawfulness of such rate, charge, classification, or service; and,
pending such hearing and the decision thereon, the Commission, upon filing with
such schedules and delivering to the public utility affected thereby a statement
in writing of its reasons for such suspension, may suspend the operation of such
schedule and defer the use of such rate, charge, classification, or service, but
not for a longer period than five months beyond the time when it would otherwise
go into effect; and after full hearings, either completed before or after the
rate, charge, classification, or service goes into effect, the Commission may
make such orders with reference thereto as would be proper in a proceeding
initiated after it had become effective. If the proceeding has not been
concluded and an order made at the expiration of such five months, the proposed
change of rate, charge, classification, or service shall go into effect at the
end of such period, but in case of a proposed increased rate or charge, the
Commission may by order require the interested public utility or public
utilities to keep accurate account in detail of all amounts received by reason
of such increase, specifying by whom and in whose behalf such amounts are paid,
and upon completion of the hearing and decision may by further order require
such public utility or public utilities to refund, with interest, to the persons
in whose behalf such amounts were paid, such portion of such increased rates or
charges as by its decision shall be found not justified. At any hearing
involving a rate or charge sought to be increased, the burden of proof to show
that the increased rate or charge is just and reasonable shall be upon the
public utility, and the Commission shall give to the hearing and decision of
such questions preference over other questions pending before it and decide the
same as speedily as possible.

(f) Review of automatic adjustment clauses and public utility
practices; action by Commission; “automatic adjustment clause” defined

(1) Not later than 2 years after November 9, 1978, and not less often
than every 4 years thereafter, the Commission shall make a thorough review of
automatic adjustment clauses in public utility rate schedules to examine—

(A) whether or not each such clause effectively provides incentives
for efficient use of resources (including economical purchase and use of fuel
and electric energy), and

(B) whether any such clause reflects any costs other than costs which
are—

(i) subject to periodic fluctuations and

(ii)
not susceptible to precise determinations in rate cases
prior to the time such costs are incurred.

Such review may take place in individual rate proceedings or
in generic or other separate proceedings applicable to one or more utilities.

(2) Not less frequently than every 2 years, in rate proceedings or in
generic or other separate proceedings, the Commission shall review, with respect
to each public utility, practices under any automatic adjustment clauses of such
utility to insure efficient use of resources (including economical purchase and
use of fuel and electric energy) under such clauses.

(3) The Commission may, on its own motion or upon complaint, after an
opportunity for an evidentiary hearing, order a public utility to—

(A) modify the terms and provisions of any automatic adjustment
clause, or

(B) cease any practice in connection with the clause,

if such clause or practice does not result in the economical
purchase and use of fuel, electric energy, or other items, the cost of which is
included in any rate schedule under an automatic adjustment clause.

(4) As used in this subsection, the term “automatic adjustment clause”
means a provision of a rate schedule which provides for increases or decreases
(or both), without prior hearing, in rates reflecting increases or decreases (or
both) in costs incurred by an electric utility. Such term does not include any
rate which takes effect subject to refund and subject to a later determination
of the appropriate amount of such rate.

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