16 U.S.C. 824d

16 U.S.C.
United States Code, 2022 Edition
Title 16 - CONSERVATION
CHAPTER 12 - FEDERAL REGULATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF POWER
SUBCHAPTER II - REGULATION OF ELECTRIC UTILITY COMPANIES ENGAGED IN INTERSTATE
COMMERCE
Sec. 824d - Rates and charges; schedules; suspension of new rates; automatic adjustment clauses
From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov

§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.
(g) Inaction of Commissioners
(1) In general
With respect to a change described in subsection (d), if the Commission permits the 60-day
period established therein to expire without issuing an order accepting or denying the change
because the Commissioners are divided two against two as to the lawfulness of the change, as a
result of vacancy, incapacity, or recusal on the Commission, or if the Commission lacks a quorum
—
(A) the failure to issue an order accepting or denying the change by the Commission shall be
considered to be an order issued by the Commission accepting the change for purposes of

section 825l(a) of this title; and
(B) each Commissioner shall add to the record of the Commission a written statement
explaining the views of the Commissioner with respect to the change.
(2) Appeal
If, pursuant to this subsection, a person seeks a rehearing under section 825l(a) of this title, and
the Commission fails to act on the merits of the rehearing request by the date that is 30 days after
the date of the rehearing request because the Commissioners are divided two against two, as a
result of vacancy, incapacity, or recusal on the Commission, or if the Commission lacks a quorum,
such person may appeal under section 825l(b) of this title.
(June 10, 1920, ch. 285, pt. II, §205, as added Aug. 26, 1935, ch. 687, title II, §213, 49 Stat. 851;
amended Pub. L. 95–617, title II, §§207(a), 208, Nov. 9, 1978, 92 Stat. 3142; Pub. L. 115–270, title
III, §3006, Oct. 23, 2018, 132 Stat. 3868.)
Editorial Notes
Amendments
2018—Subsec. (g). Pub. L. 115–270 added subsec. (g).
1978—Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 95–617, §207(a), substituted "sixty" for "thirty" in two places.
Subsec. (f). Pub. L. 95–617, §208, added subsec. (f).
Statutory Notes and Related Subsidiaries
Study of Electric Rate Increases Under Federal Power Act
Section 207(b) of Pub. L. 95–617 directed chairman of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, in
consultation with Secretary, to conduct a study of legal requirements and administrative procedures involved
in consideration and resolution of proposed wholesale electric rate increases under Federal Power Act, section
791a et seq. of this title, for purposes of providing for expeditious handling of hearings consistent with due
process, preventing imposition of successive rate increases before they have been determined by Commission
to be just and reasonable and otherwise lawful, and improving procedures designed to prohibit anticompetitive
or unreasonable differences in wholesale and retail rates, or both, and that chairman report to Congress within
nine months from Nov. 9, 1978, on results of study, on administrative actions taken as a result of this study,
and on any recommendations for changes in existing law that will aid purposes of this section.