Commissioner Mark C. Christie Statement
March 11, 2022
Docket No. EL22-2-001
In my joint concurrence with Commissioner Clements to this order, we acknowledge that the New York State Public Service Commission (NYSPSC) and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) both protested NYISO’s filing due to concerns over the potential for excessive costs to consumers from certain public policy transmission projects.[1] Other protesting organizations expressed similar concerns about costs to consumers.[2] I write separately to note the following.
The specific projects at issue in this proceeding are designed to implement the public policies of the State of New York, which are ultimately the responsibility of New York’s elected legislators. As I noted last month in my concurrence to the NYISO tariff filing implementing certain buyer-side mitigation amendments, NYISO is a single-state ISO that is attempting to act in accordance with the public policies of the state.[3]
Every state, including New York, has among its inherent police powers the authority to certificate and site generating and transmission projects and to designate the state agencies which can exercise this authority. Such designated state agencies are typically – and certainly can be – empowered to protect the state’s consumers by rejecting a certificate to construct a project, for, among other reasons, that the project is too costly to consumers or that less costly alternatives are available. So, the primary recourse for protecting consumers from excessive costs for transmission projects such as those at issue herein is the state agency or agencies with this certificating authority, assuming that elected legislators have given the state agencies sufficient authority to protect consumers. And, of course, the ultimate recourse for consumers and consumer advocates concerned about the costs of New York’s – or any other state’s – public policies is to the ballot box.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 178 FERC ¶ 61,179 (2022) (Clements, Comm’r and Christie, Comm’r concurring at P 2).
[2] New York Consumer Advocates, November 2, 2021, Protest, passim. The NYSPSC and NYSERDA were joined in this protest by Multiple Intervenors, City of New York, Consumer Power Advocates, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sustainable FERC Project (collectively New York Consumer Advocates). Multiple Intervenors is an unincorporated association of approximately 55 large industrial, commercial, and institutional energy consumers with manufacturing and other facilities located throughout New York State.
[3] N.Y. Indep. Sys. Operator, Inc., 178 FERC ¶ 61,101 (2022) (Christie, Comm’r, concurring) (available at https://www.ferc.gov/news-events/news/item-e-2-commissioner-mark-c-christie-concurrence-regarding-new-york-independent).