Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

In 2012, the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation (MBOGC) adopted special statewide temporary spacing units for certain wells. Petitioners = filed a petition for judicial review of MBOGC’s order, stating that it was filed pursuant to Mont. Code Ann. 82-11-144 and Mont. Code Ann. 2-4-702. The district court dismissed Petitioners’ proceeding, stating that the “sole remedy for a person aggrieved by an order of the MBOGC was a challenge under Montana Code Ann. 82-11-144.” The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the district court erred in dismissing the action, as Petitioners’ allegations, coupled with their express reliance upon section 82-11-144 as a legal basis for their petition, should have been sufficient to save their petition from dismissal on the ground that they had not pursued their “sole remedy” of proceeding under that statute. View "Ostby v. Bd. of Oil & Gas Conservation" on Justia Law

Mississippi Power Company filed documents asserting confidentiality with the Mississippi Public Service Commission related to a certificate-of-public-convenience-and-necessity proceeding in January 2009. In July 2012, Bigger Pie Forum (BPF) requested three of those documents from the Commission, and Mississippi Power sought a protective order. Following a hearing, the Chancery Court ordered that the documents be produced. Mississippi Power appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the Chancery Court to the extent that it ordered disclosure of the January 2009 gas price forecasts and CO2 cost assumptions that were similar in kind to those already published (by news media). However, the Court remanded this case to the Chancery Court to should consider the documents under seal and order that information pertaining to natural gas price forecasts and CO2 costs assumptions be produced by Mississippi Power. View "Mississippi Power Company v. Mississippi Public Service Comm'n" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Alabama Power on their complaint alleging that Alabama Power unreasonably lowered the water levels of Smith Lake. Determining that Article III's standing requirements have been met, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to issue a declaratory judgment concerning plaintiffs' purported riparian rights. Plaintiffs did not have a right to a declaratory judgment and the district court did not abuse its substantial discretion by assuming plaintiffs had riparian rights and then resolving their claims on an alternative basis. The court agreed with the district court that plaintiffs' claims were a collateral attack on the FERC's final relicensing determination. Plaintiffs' argument that they were not subject to the exclusive judicial review provision of section 825l(b) of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 825l(b), because they are distinct parties from Smith Lake Improvement and Stakeholders Association (SLISA) and did not participate in the proceedings before the FERC was unavailing. Section 821 of the Federal Power Act, 16 U.S.C. 821, did not allow plaintiffs to veto the operation of a project that was approved and licensed by the FERC. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment denying plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment and granting summary judgment to Alabama Power. View "Otwell, Sr., et al. v. Alabama Power Co." on Justia Law

Applicant Ecos Energy, LLC appealed the Public Service Board's decision that its proposed solar power project did not qualify for a standard-offer power purchase contract under Vermont's Sustainably Priced Energy Enterprise Development (SPEED) program because it exceeded the statutory limit on generation capacity. In 2009, the Board issued an order in which it prescribed various procedures and requirements for the standard-offer program. The standard-offer program was administered by the SPEED facilitator, VEPP, Inc. One of the participants in the implementation process, Central Vermont Public Service, commented that separate projects would need to enter into separate interconnection agreements with the utility, enter into separate standard contracts, and obtain separate certificates of public good. Another participant, Renewable Energy Vermont, commented that the statute was clear that "separate plants that share common infrastructure and interconnection should be considered as one plant." In April 2013, VEPP issued a request for proposals (RFP) for projects. Applicant proposed three 2.0 MW solar projects (the Bennington Solar project, the Apple Hill Solar project, and the Sudbury Solar project). Applicant's three projects were the lowest-priced projects. In submitting the RFP results to the Board, VEPP noted that the Bennington project and the Apple Hill project would be located on the same parcel of property and the generation components of the project were "physically contiguous." It requested that the Board make a determination as to whether or not the two projects constituted a single plant. The Board accepted the Bennington project and disqualified the Apple Hill project, which had a higher price. The Board authorized VEPP to enter into standard-offer contracts with applicant for the Bennington and Sudbury projects. Applicant subsequently petitioned the Board to reconsider and modify its order. When it refused, applicant appealed the decision. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court found that the Board's conclusion that the Bennington and Apple Hill projects constituted a single plant was contrary to the plain language of the applicable statute: the Bennington and Apple Hill projects would qualify as "independent technical facilities." As such the Court reversed the Board's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "In re Programmatic Changes to the Standard-Offer Program and Investigation into the Establishment of Standard-Offer Prices under the Sustainably Priced Energy Enterprise Development" on Justia Law

Wayne Morrow filed a permissive appeal to the Circuit Court's order denying his request for a judgment declaring that the $100,000 cap on damages in section 11-47-190, Ala. Code 1975, applied to Morrow, a municipal employee who was sued in his individual capacity. In 2009, Alice Yu sought to have Alabama Power Company restore electrical service in her name at a commercial building she was leasing. The premises had been without power for approximately eight months. The City of Montgomery sent Morrow to perform an electrical inspection of the premises and clear the premises for service before electrical service was restored. Keandarick Russell, a minor, was staying with his great-grandmother, who lived next door to the premises. Russell was playing on the concrete pad on which the air-conditioning system was located and was electrocuted when he came in contact with a chain-link fence adjacent to the premises. When the incident occurred, wires from an uncovered junction box at the electrical source had come in contact with a portion of the fence, and, as a result, the fence had become electrified. Russell was electrocuted when he touched the fence. Shameka Caldwell, as Russell's mother and next friend, filed a wrongful-death action against multiple defendants, including Morrow and Yu for two fictitiously named defendants. In the amended complaint, Caldwell alleged that Morrow had negligently, recklessly, and/or wantonly inspected the premises and had negligently, recklessly, and/or wantonly allowed electrical service to be restored to the premises. In his answer, Morrow asserted that he was entitled to State immunity, to State-agent immunity, and to qualified immunity. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded the plain language of 11-47-190 did not limit the recovery on a claim against a municipal employee in his or her individual capacity, the $100,000 statutory cap on recovery would not apply to Caldwell's claims against Morrow. Therefore, the trial court properly denied Morrow's request for a judgment declaring that it would. View "Morrow v. Caldwell" on Justia Law

The companies obtained an oil and gas lease from the government for a 5760-acre tract on the Outer Continental Shelf. They made an initial bonus payment of $23,236,314 and have paid additional rental payments of $54,720 per year. The lease became effective on August 1, 2008, and had an initial term running through July 31, 2016. It provided that it issued pursuant to and was subject to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of August 7, 1953, (OCSLA) 43 U.S.C. 1331 and “all regulations issued pursuant to the statute in the future which provide for the prevention of waste and conservation of the natural resources of the Outer Continental Shelf and the protection of correlative rights therein; and all other applicable statutes and regulations.” In 2010, an explosion and fire on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers and caused an oil spill that lasted several months. As a result, the government imposed new regulatory requirements, Oil Pollution Act (OPA), 33 U.S.C. 2701. The companies sued for breach of contract. The Claims Court and Federal Circuit ruled in favor of the government, finding that the government made the changes pursuant to OCSLA, not OPA. View "Century Exploration New Orleans, LLC v. United States" on Justia Law

Two firms receiving gas storage service in the Washington Storage Field ceased taking service and "released" their storage rights to Paribas. The departing customers exercised their contract rights to buy back so-called "base gas" from the field's operator, Transco. Given the buy-back, Transco had to make new purchases to replenish its base gas so as to maintain service at the levels prevailing before the replacement. At the time of the exiting customers' departure, the historic customers who remained, and the new replacement customers, disputed whether the cost of the new base gas should be charged entirely to the replacement shippers ("incremental pricing") or should be charged to all shippers in proportion to their usage ("rolled-in pricing"). On appeal, Paribas challenged the Commission's ratemaking decisions under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 551 et seq. In a decision purporting to apply the familiar "cost causation" principle, the Commission chose incremental pricing. The court concluded that the Commission failed to offer an intelligible explanation of how its decision manifested the cost causation principle; failed to explain how or why or in what sense the historic customers' continued demand did not share, pro rata, in causing the need for the new base gas, or, how or why or in what sense the historic customers did not share proportionately in the benefits provided by the new base gas; and brushed off Paribas's invocation of a seemingly parallel set of the Commission's own decisions. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "BNP Paribas Energy Trading GP v. FERC" on Justia Law

Shirley Adams and other landowners challenged a petition of the U.S. Oil and Gas Association that proposed amendments to Statewide Rule 681 which authorized the surface and subsurface landspreading of NORM as additional methods of disposal. The Mississippi Oil and Gas Board approved the proposed amendments to Rule 68, and its decision was upheld by the Chancery Court. After careful consideration, the Supreme Court found that the landowners failed to prove that the Board's adoption of amended Rule 68 was arbitrary and capricious or against the weight of the evidence. In addition, the Board's decision did not violate federal law or the landowners' constitutional rights; however, the Board violated state law when it exceeded its statutory authority under Section 53-1-17 by amending Rule 68 without gaining the approval of the Mississippi Commission on Environmental Quality. Accordingly, the Chancery Court's decision was reversed and the case remanded for review by the Commission. View "Adams v. Mississippi State Oil & Gas Board" on Justia Law

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is a federal agency that, under the Federal Power Act, regulates rates charged by public utilities for transmission and sale of energy in interstate commerce, and rules pertaining to such rates, 16 U.S.C. 824d. In 2006, FERC approved a new tariff (rules governing interstate sale of electricity and electric capacity) for the PJM market, covering 13 states and the District of Columbia, as a result of an extensively negotiated settlement between power providers, utility companies, government authorities and others. The order required that load serving entities (LSEs) in the market procure a certain amount of energy capacity for access during peak load; included a rule that offers for the sale of capacity in the markets at artificially low prices would, with some exceptions, be required to be raised to a competitive level (mitigation). In 2011, FERC altered the 2006 Order: eliminating a mitigation exemption for resources built under state mandate; eliminating a provision that guaranteed that LSEs would be able to use “self-supply” to satisfy capacity obligations; and changing factors used in determining whether an offer was subject to mitigation. Objectors argued that the changes amounted to direct regulation of power facilities in violation of the FPA, and that FERC arbitrarily eliminated the mitigation exemption for state-mandated resources. Electric utilities challenged elimination of self-supply assurances for LSEs. Others challenged new rules governing calculation of a resource’s net cost of new entry (for determining whether an offer for sale of capacity will be mitigated) and FERC’s determination that a new generation resource must clear only one capacity auction to avoid further mitigation. The Third Circuit rejected all of the challenges. View "NJ Bd. of Pub. Utils. v. Fed Energy Regulatory Comm'n" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case involved the assessed value of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System for property tax purposes. The parties disputed the method used to assess the pipeline's value as well as the specific deductions made for functional and economic obsolescence. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court's valuation. View "BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc. v. Alaska" on Justia Law