The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has become a major focus of our campaign over this past year, as they are the body that approves regional grid operator ISO-New England’s forward capacity payments to Merrimack Station. That’s why this past spring we organized a public comment period in opposition to ISO’s most recent forward capacity auction results. You can read more about that comment period here. After much back and forth between us and ISO-NE about the scope of the proceedings, we finally received the official FERC response to our comments.
In their response, FERC gave a detailed summary of our comments, writing that NCNG argues capacity payments to fossil fuels “amount to a subsidy that is keeping such plants in operation, thereby contributing to climate change, and that such funding would be better spent modernizing the grid and developing renewable energy.” They also noted our arguments that “ISO-NE has already found that Merrimack is not essential to system reliability” and that “Merrimack is actually harming reliability by contributing to climate change, which in turn creates more extreme climate events that threaten reliability.”
This is a distinct improvement from the 2021 comment period, during which FERC failed to acknowledge our points at all. In the end, however, the commission ruled that our comments “raise issues that are outside the scope of this proceeding because they do not bear on whether ISO-NE conducted FCA 16 in accordance with its Tariff.” (If you’d like to see our argument about why our comments are within the scope, see Section B of this filing.) FERC also responded to our argument about the lack of an officially sanctioned alternative method for meaningful input with the cryptic statement that “such issues may be more properly pursued in other proceedings, such as complaints filed by these entities, as appropriate.”
Though we are frustrated by the response that our comments were ruled outside the scope, we are heartened by the fact that FERC seems to be taking us much more seriously than before. We plan to keep exploring ways that we can engage FERC as a strategic lever of our campaign, both through established “proper channels,” and through our own creative mischief. Here are some of the ways we’ve engaged so far:
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently held a forum in Burlington Vermont, discussing winter reliability for the New England electric grid. This forum was largely an opportunity for fear-mongering from gas corporations and ISO-NE, who jointly argued that the unreliability of fracked gas on our grid necessitates…. more fracked gas? Speakers at the event (the majority of whom worked for fossil fuel companies) argued against a transition to renewables, claiming that New England will face power outages without a huge supply of fossil fuels.
As Chase Whiting wrote in the VTDigger, “While New England has not had rolling blackouts despite ISO-New England’s annual warnings, we certainly could in the future. But they likely won’t be because our fossil fuel energy supplies are running low. It will be a result of climate change. Climate change is causing severe, dramatic weather events — extreme heat and storms, flooding and drought. Those events, not a lack of fossil fuel supply, are the cause of downed power lines, flooded power stations, more power demand and electrical outages that actually do leave New Englanders in the dark.”
Folks from NCNG and Fix the Grid decided to show up to FERC’s Burlington forum to oppose the message that fracked gas will protect our grid. We know that in New England and beyond, fossil fuels are the greatest threat to grid reliability. That’s why we demanded that FERC and ISO stop hiding behind excuses and oppose coal and gas plants in New England and beyond. We delivered goodie bags of literature and coal to the FERC commissioners and other attendees to help get our message across—but Gordon Van Welie, president of ISO-NE, rejected our gifts and refused to speak to us.
After the forum, members of our ISO working group also met with staff from the FERC Office of Public Participation (OPP). We were able to express our frustration with FERC’s decision that our spring public comments were “outside the scope” of consideration, and gave feedback about the inaccessibility of the recent FERC forum. The OPP Staff answered some of our questions on processes, and committed to work with us to get more environmental justice voices and public participation in future FERC proceedings. We don’t plan to back down from our demands that FERC oppose forward capacity payments to the Merrimack Station and other fossil fuel generators, and we are excited to have the help of the OPP in bringing this forward.
To learn more about our FERC organizing over the past months or to get involved, reach out to Marla at marla@climatedisobedience.org.
