16 USC 824d

16 US Code

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

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

(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.

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

§ 824e. Power of Commission to fix rates and charges; determination of cost of production or transmission

(a) Unjust or preferential rates, etc.; statement of reasons for changes; hearing; specification of issues

Whenever the Commission, after a hearing held upon its own motion or upon complaint, shall find that any rate, charge, or classification, demanded, observed, charged, or collected by any public utility for any transmission or sale subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, or that any rule, regulation, practice, or contract affecting such rate, charge, or classification is unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory or preferential, the Commission shall determine the just and reasonable rate, charge, classification, rule, regulation, practice, or contract to be thereafter observed and in force, and shall fix the same by order. Any complaint or motion of the Commission to initiate a proceeding under this section shall state the change or changes to be made in the rate, charge, classification, rule, regulation, practice, or contract then in force, and the reasons for any proposed change or changes therein. If, after review of any motion or complaint and answer, the Commission shall decide to hold a hearing, it shall fix by order the time and place of such hearing and shall specify the issues to be adjudicated.

(b) Refund effective date; preferential proceedings; statement of reasons for delay; burden of proof; scope of refund order; refund orders in cases of dilatory behavior; interest

Whenever the Commission institutes a proceeding under this section, the Commission shall establish a refund effective date. In the case of a proceeding instituted on complaint, the refund effective date shall not be earlier than the date of the filing of such complaint nor later than 5 months after the filing of such complaint. In the case of a proceeding instituted by the Commission on its own motion, the refund effective date shall not be earlier than the date of the publication by the Commission of notice of its intention to initiate such proceeding nor later than 5 months after the publication date. Upon institution of a proceeding under this section, the Commission shall give to the decision of such proceeding the same preference as provided under section 824d of this title and otherwise act as speedily as possible. If no final decision is rendered by the conclusion of the 180-day period commencing upon initiation of a proceeding pursuant to this section, the Commission shall state the reasons why it has failed to do so and shall state its best estimate as to when it reasonably expects to make such decision. In any proceeding under this section, the burden of proof to show that any rate, charge, classification, rule, regulation, practice, or contract is unjust, unreasonable, unduly discriminatory, or preferential shall be upon the Commission or the complainant. At the conclusion of any proceeding under this section, the Commission may order refunds of any amounts paid, for the period subsequent to the refund effective date through a date fifteen months after such refund effective date, in excess of those which would have been paid under the just and reasonable rate, charge, classification, rule, regulation, practice, or contract which the Commission orders to be thereafter observed and in force: Provided, That if the proceeding is not concluded within fifteen months after the refund effective date and if the Commission determines at the conclusion of the proceeding that the proceeding was not resolved within the fifteen-month period primarily because of dilatory behavior by the public utility, the Commission may order refunds of any or all amounts paid for the period subsequent to the refund effective date and prior to the conclusion of the proceeding. The refunds shall be made, with interest, to those persons who have paid those rates or charges which are the subject of the proceeding.

(c) Refund considerations; shifting costs; reduction in revenues; “electric utility companies” and “registered holding company” defined

Notwithstanding subsection (b) of this section, in a proceeding commenced under this section involving two or more electric utility companies of a registered holding company, refunds which might otherwise be payable under subsection (b) of this section shall not be ordered to the extent that such refunds would result from any portion of a Commission order that

(1) requires a decrease in system production or transmission costs to be paid by one or more of such electric companies; and

(2) is based upon a determination that the amount of such decrease should be paid through an increase in the costs to be paid by other electric utility companies of such registered holding company: Provided, That refunds, in whole or in part, may be ordered by the Commission if it determines that the registered holding company would not experience any reduction in revenues which results from an inability of an electric utility company of the holding company to recover such increase in costs for the period between the refund effective date and the effective date of the Commission’s order. For purposes of this subsection, the terms “electric utility companies” and “registered holding company” shall have the same meanings as provided in the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, as amended.^[1]

(d) Investigation of costs

The Commission upon its own motion, or upon the request of any State commission whenever it can do so without prejudice to the efficient and proper conduct of its affairs, may investigate and determine the cost of the production or transmission of electric energy by means of facilities under the jurisdiction of the Commission in cases where the Commission has no authority to establish a rate governing the sale of such energy.

(e) Short-term sales

(1) In this subsection:

(A) The term “short-term sale” means an agreement for the sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce that is for a period of 31 days or less (excluding monthly contracts subject to automatic renewal).

(B) The term “applicable Commission rule” means a Commission rule applicable to sales at wholesale by public utilities that the Commission determines after notice and comment should also be applicable to entities subject to this subsection.

(2) If an entity described in section 824 (f) of this title voluntarily makes a short-term sale of electric energy through an organized market in which the rates for the sale are established by Commission-approved tariff (rather than by contract) and the sale violates the terms of the tariff or applicable Commission rules in effect at the time of the sale, the entity shall be subject to the refund authority of the Commission under this section with respect to the violation.

(3) This section shall not apply to—

(A) any entity that sells in total (including affiliates of the entity) less than 8,000,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year; or

(B) an electric cooperative.

(4)

(A) The Commission shall have refund authority under paragraph (2) with respect to a voluntary short term sale of electric energy by the Bonneville Power Administration only if the sale is at an unjust and unreasonable rate.

(B) The Commission may order a refund under subparagraph (A) only for short-term sales made by the Bonneville Power Administration at rates that are higher than the highest just and reasonable rate charged by any other entity for a short-term sale of electric energy in the same geographic market for the same, or most nearly comparable, period as the sale by the Bonneville Power Administration.

(C) In the case of any Federal power marketing agency or the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Commission shall not assert or exercise any regulatory authority or power under paragraph (2) other than the ordering of refunds to achieve a just and reasonable rate.

[1] See References in Text note below.