Commissioner James Danly Statement
July 28, 2022
Project No. 14635-001
I concur with today’s order[1] issuing an original license to the Village of Gouverneur to operate and maintain the unlicensed Gouverneur Hydroelectric Project. I write separately to express my concern about Article 202, which reserves authority for the Commission to impose financial assurance mechanisms without any limiting principle.[2] As I have previously stated,[3] this reservation may have the unfortunate effect of reinforcing uncertainty and limiting licensees’ access to the very financing we should seek to encourage. I very much appreciate those who participated in Commission staff’s technical workshop to discuss financial assurance mechanisms.[4] It is imperative that the Commission take a hard look at our financial assurance requirements and deliberately determine what, if any, changes or improvements should be adopted.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] Village of Gouverneur, 180 FERC ¶ 61,046 (2022).
[2] See id. P 75 & Ordering Para. (F) (listing additional license articles, including Article 202 which provides “[t]he Commission reserves the right to require future measures to ensure that the licensee maintains sufficient financial reserves to carry out the terms of the license and Commission orders pertaining thereto.”) (emphasis added).
[3] See, e.g., Pub. Util. Dist. No. 1 of Pend Oreille Cnty., 177 FERC ¶ 61,183 (2021) (Danly, Comm’r, concurring at PP 1-3).
[4] See Transcript of the Technical Conference on Financial Assurance Measures for Hydroelectric Projects, Docket No. RM21-9-000 (Apr. 26, 2022).