''FERC v. Electric Power Supply Ass'n'', 577 U.S. 260 (2016), was a case in which the

Supreme Court of the United States The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...

held that the

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas and regulates the prices of interstate transport ...

had the authority to regulate

demand response Demand response is a change in the power consumption of an electric utility customer to better match the demand for power with the supply. Until the 21st century decrease in the cost of pumped storage and batteries, electric energy could not b ...

transactions. Justice Scalia's dissenting opinion in this case was the last opinion he wrote before his death in February 2016.

Background

Under the

Federal Power Act The Federal Power Act is a law appearing in Chapter 12 of Title 16 of the United States Code, entitled "Federal Regulation and Development of Power". Enacted as the Federal Water Power Act on June 10, 1920, and amended many times since, its orig ...

, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is allowed to regulate “the sale of electric energy at wholesale in interstate commerce", including any activities that affect the wholesale price of electricity. This case involved a dispute about FERC's attempts to regulate a practice called "demand response". In demand response transactions, wholesale electricity suppliers pay consumers to use less electricity during periods in which electricity is in high demand. In certain circumstances, FERC required suppliers to pay conserving consumers the same price that they would pay electricity producers for generating electricity. A group of electricity suppliers challenged FERC's regulation in court; they claimed that FERC lacked authority to regulate demand response transactions and that even if they did have the power to do so, FERC failed to justify why demand response providers and electricity producers should receive the same compensation.

Opinion of the Court

Writing for a majority of the Court,

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

Elena Kagan Elena Kagan ( ; born April 28, 1960) is an American lawyer who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was Elena Kagan Supreme Court nomination ...

ruled that FERC possessed the "requisite statutory power" to regulate demand response transactions and that FERC adequately justified why demand response providers and electricity producers should receive the same compensation. Justice

Antonin Scalia Antonin Gregory Scalia (March 11, 1936 – February 13, 2016) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1986 until his death in 2016. He was described as the intellectual an ...

wrote a dissenting opinion in which he argued that FERC did not have authority to regulate demand response transactions.''FERC v. Electric Power Supply Assn.'', slip. op. at 1 (Scalia, J., dissenting). This was the last dissenting opinion written by Justice Scalia before his death in February 2016, though his last majority opinion was in ''

Kansas v. Carr Kansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named after the Kansas River, in turn named a ...

''.

References

External links

* {{caselaw source , case = ''FERC v. Electric Power Supply Ass'n'', 577 U.S. 260 (2016) , googlescholar = https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1024603742905130870 , justia =https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/577/14-840/ , oyez =https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/14-840 , other_source1 = Supreme Court (slip opinion) (archived) , other_url1 =https://web.archive.org/web/0/https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-840-%20new_o75q.pdf United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court 2016 in United States case law Demand response Electric power in the United States

Background

Opinion of the Court

See also

References

External links