Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-04-01269/USCOURTS-caDC-04-01269-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Respondent
Southern Company Services, Inc.
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 17, 2005 Decided July 22, 2005

No. 03-1252

SOUTHERN COMPANY SERVICES, INC.,

PETITIONER

v.

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION,

RESPONDENT

WILLIAMS POWER COMPANY INC.,

INTERVENOR

Consolidated with

04-1269

On Petitions for Review of Orders of the

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Andrew W. Tunnell argued the cause for petitioner. With

him on the briefs was Jennifer M. Buettner.

Dennis Lane, Solicitor, Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the

brief was Cynthia A. Marlette, General Counsel.

Alex A. Goldberg was on the brief for intervenor.

USCA Case #04-1269 Document #907721 Filed: 07/22/2005 Page 1 of 16
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Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and TATEL and GARLAND,

Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GARLAND.

GARLAND, Circuit Judge: Petitioner Southern Company

Services, Inc., an agent for five electric utilities, challenges

orders of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

that rejected two of Southern’s agreements to roll over

transmission service. FERC rejected the agreements because

they limited the ability of Southern’s customers to roll the

agreements over again upon their expiration. According to

FERC, any restrictions that a transmission provider wants to

impose on rollover rights must be included in the original

service agreement between the parties, not in the rollover

agreements themselves. Southern argues that FERC did not

announce this “original agreement” requirement until after

Southern entered into the relevant original service agreements,

and that applying it to those agreements is therefore arbitrary

and capricious. FERC contends that the requirement was

contained in two industry-wide orders issued prior to the

execution of Southern’s original service agreements -- Order

Nos. 888 and 888-A -- and that Southern’s objections thus are

untimely collateral attacks on those orders.

There are two separate agreements at issue here: one

between Southern and Williams Energy Marketing & Trading

Company, and another between Southern and Oglethorpe Power

Corporation. We conclude that Southern’s petition regarding

the Williams orders is moot because the Williams agreement has

since expired. We conclude that Southern’s petition regarding

the Oglethorpe orders, however, is neither moot nor a collateral

attack on Order Nos. 888 and 888-A. And because we find that

FERC’s original agreement requirement was not contained in

either Order No. 888 or Order No. 888-A, and FERC offers no

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1

“A service agreement is a type of form contract that sets out the

contract terms between the parties to a particular service transaction.”

FERC Br. at 6 n.3.

other reason why the requirement is properly applied to the

Oglethorpe agreement, we vacate the Oglethorpe orders as

arbitrary and capricious.

I

In 1996, FERC issued an order, widely known as “Order

No. 888,” that restructured the wholesale electric power market

by requiring all jurisdictional public utilities to unbundle

wholesale electric power services and to provide open-access

nondiscriminatory transmission services. See Promoting

Wholesale Competition Through Open Access

Nondiscriminatory Transmission Services by Public Utilities;

Recovery of Stranded Costs byPublicUtilitiesand Transmitting

Utilities, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,036 (1996), 61 Fed. Reg.

21,540, on reh’g, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,048, 62 Fed. Reg.

12,274 (“Order No. 888-A”), on reh’g, 81 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,248

(1997) (“Order No. 888-B”), on reh’g, 82 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,046

(1998) (“Order No. 888-C”), aff’d, Transmission Access Policy

Study Group v. FERC, 225 F.3d 667 (D.C. Cir. 2000), aff’d sub

nom. New York v. FERC, 535 U.S. 1 (2002).

Among its numerous provisions, Order No. 888 generally

requires utilities to allow their firm transmission customers to

roll over service agreements1that have a duration of one year or

longer. See Order No. 888, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,036, at

31,665 (“[A]ll firm transmission customers . . . , upon the

expiration of their contracts or at the time their contracts become

subject to renewal or rollover, should have the right to continue

to take transmission service from their existing transmission

provider.”). This provision gives those customers a “limited

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right of first refusal” to “match the rate offered by another

potential customer.” Id. Order No. 888-A, which addressed

petitions for rehearing and clarification of Order No. 888,

announced the following exception to this rule: 

[I]f a utility provides firm transmission service to a

third party for a time until native load needs the

capacity, it should specify in the contract that the right

of first refusal does not apply to that firm service due

to a reasonably forecasted need at the time the contract

is executed.

Order No. 888-A, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,048, at 30,198. In

other words, transmission providers can limit customers’

rollover rights if they so specify “in the contract.” Id. 

In Nevada Power Co., issued onDecember 20, 2001, FERC

used new language to describe how a provider should specify

the reservation of transmission capacity, stating that “such

reservations for native load should be included in the original

transmission service agreement.” 97 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,324, at

62,492 (emphasis added). The following year, FERC issued a

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that sought to change the

wording of the pro forma tariff -- originally issued as part of

Order Nos. 888 and 888-A -- to incorporate this “original

agreement” requirement. Remedying Undue Discrimination

Through Open Access Transmission Service and Standard

ElectricityMarket Design,Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 100

F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,138, ¶¶ 121-23, app. A (2002). 

Southern is a transmission provider, and two of its

agreements form the basis of the disputes here. In October

2001, Southern and Oglethorpe signed a contract for firm

transmission service to go into effect on December 1, 2001 and

expire one year later. Oglethorpe sought to roll over the

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agreement before it expired, and in response Southern filed an

executed rollover agreement with FERC on December 20, 2002.

The rollover agreement included a provision conditioning

Oglethorpe’s right of first refusal -- i.e., its right to demand

future rollovers -- on (inter alia) the “availability of sufficient

transmission capacity after . . . [specified other] [c]ustomers

exercise their rights to transmission service” and “after the

allocation of capacity to meet the Transmission Provider’s

native load needs.” Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 103 F.E.R.C. ¶

61,117, at 61,371 (2003) (“Oglethorpe Order”). On May 2,

2003, FERC accepted the filing but required Oglethorpe to

remove the limitation on rollovers, stating: “Since issuing Order

Nos. 888 and 888-A, the Commission has consistently

reaffirmed” that “any limitations to rollover rights must be

stated clearly in the original transmission service agreement.”

Id. Because the rollover service agreement submitted by

Southern added “language that was not in the original service

agreement,” the limiting language was deemed unacceptable.

Id.

On May 30, 2003, Southern submitted a compliance filing

under protest, along with a petition for rehearing that challenged

the “original agreement” requirement. Southern contended that

the requirement was a new policy, first announced in Nevada

Power, and that it was arbitrary and capricious to apply it

retroactively where a transmission provider -- like Southern --

had entered into an original service agreement before that case.

FERC disagreed, insisting that the requirement was not new, and

that Southern’s request for rehearing was “basically a collateral

attack on the Commission’s rollover rights policy as established

in Order No. 888.” Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 108 F.E.R.C. ¶

61,174, at 62,040 (2004) (“Oglethorpe Order on Reh’g”).

During and subsequent to these proceedings, Oglethorpe

continued to make rollover requests -- one on September 25,

2003, and another on September 29, 2004 -- so that the service

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agreement between it and Southern is still in effect. See

Southern Supp. Br. at 7.

Similar circumstances attended Southern’s transmission

agreement with Williams. In October 2002, Williams requested

a rollover of its original one-year service agreement, and

Southern filed with FERC an unexecuted rollover agreement

that placed limitations on future rollovers. In orders similar to

those addressing the Oglethorpe agreement, FERC accepted the

filing subject to elimination of the rollover limitations, see

Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 102 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,201 (2003), and

then denied rehearing, see Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 104

F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,140 (2003). “Southern’s arguments to limit

Williams’ rollover rights,” the Commission said, were “virtually

identical to those arguments raised” in the Oglethorpe case, and

FERC rejected them for the same reason: the limitations “were

not included in the original transmission service agreement.”

Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 102 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,201, at 61,591.

Unlike Oglethorpe, however, Williams did not make a

subsequent rollover request, and the agreement between

Southern and Williams expired on December 31, 2003. See

FERC Br. at 22; Southern Br. at 46 n.23.

Southern now petitions for review of FERC’s orders,

arguing that they are arbitrary and capricious because Southern

had no notice of the “original agreement” requirement when it

entered into its original agreements with Oglethorpe and

Williams, and that the requirement impairs its ability to provide

reliable transmission services.

II

We begin with the question of mootness, as it is a

“threshold jurisdictional issue.” Coalition of Airline Pilots

Ass’ns v. FAA, 370 F.3d 1184, 1189 (D.C. Cir. 2004).

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Southern’s challenge to FERC’s Oglethorpe orders plainly is not

moot, since a rolled-over Oglethorpe agreement remains in

effect. The Williams agreement has expired, however, and

Southern agrees that there is no live controversy regarding that

agreement.

Nonetheless, Southern contends that its challenge to

FERC’s orders regarding the Williams agreement meets the

mootness exception for cases that are “capable of repetition, yet

evading review,” Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 17 (1998).

This exception applies if: “(1) the challenged action [is] in its

duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or

expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the

same complaining party [will] be subject to the same action

again.” Id. (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks

omitted). The burden is on the petitioner to show that these

requirements are met. See Public Utils. Comm’n v. FERC, 236

F.3d 708, 714 (D.C. Cir. 2001). Here, we need not examine the

second prong because Southern cannot satisfy the first.

In deciding whether challenged actions can be fully litigated

prior to their expiration, we have recognized that “orders of less

than two years’ duration ordinarily evade review.” Burlington

N. R.R. Co. v. STB, 75 F.3d 685, 690 (D.C. Cir. 1996). Southern

claims that the Williams orders meet this requirement because

the Williams rollover agreement expired after only one year. It

also points to a prior challenge to the rollover policy that we

dismissed as moot because the agreement at issue there had also

expired. See Southern Co. Servs., Inc. v. FERC, No. 03-1106,

2003 WL 22669559 (D.C. Cir. Nov. 7, 2003). 

This court has emphasized that, when reliance on the

mootness exception is based on the short duration of an order,

the question is whether such a short duration is “typical” of the

controversy. See In re Reporters Comm. for Freedom of the

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2Because the only relief Southern has requested is vacatur of the

Williams orders and reinstatement of the limitations Southern had

placed in the (now expired) Williams rollover agreement, see Southern

Br. at 50; Southern Reply Br. at 30, we have no occasion to consider

whether a challenge to FERC’s ongoing policy would have permitted

this court to issue declaratory or injunctive relief despite the expiration

of the agreement. Compare Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 2003 WL

22669559, at *1 (holding that Southern’s challenge to the original

agreement requirement as applied to another rollover agreement was

moot because the agreement had expired, and that Southern lacked

standing to challenge the ongoing requirement itself because it had

“not shown that it faces the kind of actual or imminent injury required

for Article III standing to pursue such a challenge” (internal quotation

Press, 773 F.2d 1325, 1329 (D.C. Cir. 1985); see also Spencer,

523 U.S. at 18 (holding that a challenge to a parole revocation

did not satisfy the mootness exception because the petitioner

“ha[d] not shown . . . that the time between parole revocation

and expiration of sentence is always so short as to evade

review”). The two instances cited by Williams do not suffice to

show that orders regarding rollovers will typically evade review.

Southern has not established that rollovers typically last less

than two years, or that rollovers are not typically rolled over

again for a total duration of more than two years. Indeed, the

vitality of Southern’s other petition in this very case (its

challenge to FERC’s Oglethorpe agreement) makes clear that

Southern can fully litigate a challenge to FERC’s “original

agreement” requirement while a rollover agreement -- and

FERC’s order regarding such an agreement -- remains in effect.

We therefore conclude that Southern has failed to show that

FERC actions like the one at issue in Southern’s Williams

petition will typically evade review. Accordingly, we dismiss

the Williams petition as moot and vacate the corresponding

FERC orders. See A.L. Mechling Barge Lines, Inc. v. United

States, 368 U.S. 324, 329-30 (1961).2

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marks omitted)), and Entergy Servs., Inc. v. FERC, 391 F.3d 1240,

1246 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (holding that petitioners do not have standing

to challenge FERC’s “At or Beyond” rule until “they are confronted

with it in a matter before the Commission regarding a ‘live’

interconnection agreement”), with City of Houston v. Department of

Hous. & Urban Dev., 24 F.3d 1421, 1429 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (noting

that, “if a plaintiff’s specific claim has been mooted, it may

nevertheless seek declaratory relief forbidding an agency from

imposing a disputed policy in the future, so long as the plaintiff has

standing to bring such a forward-looking challenge and the request for

declaratory relief is ripe”).

III

Section 313 of the Federal Power Act gives this court

jurisdiction to review an order of the Commission only if an

aggrieved party files a petition with the court within sixty days

of the issuance of the order. See 16 U.S.C. § 825l(b). FERC

contends that the original agreement requirement was part of

Order Nos. 888 and 888-A, and that because Southern’s petition

in this case came years later, its challenge is an untimely

collateral attack on those orders. See City of Nephi v. FERC,

147 F.3d 929, 934 (D.C. Cir. 1998).

The question of whether Southern is collaterally attacking

prior orders depends on whether those orders gave “‘sufficient

notice’” of the rule to which Southern now objects. Dominion

Res., Inc. v. FERC, 286 F.3d 586, 590 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (quoting

East Texas Cooperative v. FERC, 218 F.3d 750, 754 (D.C. Cir.

2000)). As the Supreme Court has recognized, if the challenged

order “revised” the prior order, then it can be reviewed; if it is

a mere “clarification,” then it cannot. ICC v. Brotherhood of

Locomotive Eng’rs, 482 U.S. 270, 286 (1987). We have

explained that “self-evidently the calendar does not run until the

agency has decided a question in a manner that reasonably puts

aggrieved parties on notice of the rule’s content.” RCA Global

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Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 758 F.2d 722, 730 (D.C. Cir.

1985); see Sam Rayburn Dam Elec. Coop. v. FPC, 515 F.2d

998, 1007 (D.C. Cir. 1975) (holding that a petitioner must object

“as soon as it could reasonably have become aware of the

import” of the order). An objection is considered a collateral

attack only if “a reasonable firm in [petitioner’s] position ‘would

have perceived a very substantial risk that the [order] meant’

what the Commission now says it meant.” Dominion Res., 286

F.3d at 589 (quotingANRPipeline Co. v. FERC, 988 F.2d 1229,

1234 (D.C. Cir. 1993)).

With these principles in mind, we turn to the orders in this

case. FERC’s reference to Order No. 888 as a source of the

original agreement requirement is unhelpful: although Order

No. 888 set forth the right of transmission customers to roll over

their contracts, it was not until Order No. 888-A that FERC

announced the exception that is at issue in this case. Order No.

888-A allows transmission providers to place certain limitations

on customers’ rights of first refusal if the limitations are

specified “in the contract . . . at the time the contract is

executed.” Order No. 888-A at 30,198. According to FERC,

Southern should have known that “contract” means only the

original service agreement, and does not include subsequent

rollover agreements. 

But there is nothing in the language of the Order No. 888-A

exception to put Southern on notice that the “contract” it

references is the original service agreement alone. Regardless

of whether rollover agreements are new contracts or extensions

of the original, there is no doubt that they are themselves

“contracts.” See BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY 341 (8th ed. 2004)

(defining a “contract” as “[a]n agreement between two or more

parties creating obligations that are enforceable or otherwise

recognizable at law”); cf. 15 U.S.C. § 3301(12) (using the term

“rollover contract” in the natural gas context). As FERC

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explained in a 2000 order, “[b]y exercising a right of first refusal

an existing transmission customer is, in effect, arranging a new

long-term firm point-to-point transmission service.” Entergy

Power Mktg. Corp. v. Southwest Power Pool, Inc., 91 F.E.R.C.

¶ 61,276, at 61,936 (2000). Nor does the fact that the limitation

must be imposed “at the time the contract is executed” suggest

that the exception is inapplicable to rollovers, since rollovers --

like original service agreements -- are “executed” by the parties.

See, e.g., Oglethorpe Order on Reh’g at 62,039 (referring to the

Oglethorpe filing as an “executed rollover service agreement”).

Moreover, the balance of Order No. 888-A repeatedly uses

the term “contract” in contexts that unmistakably encompass

rollover agreements. The Order states, for example, that “the

Commission reaffirms its decision” to give an existing firm

transmission customer “served under a contract of one year or

more, a reservation priority (right of first refusal) when its

contract expires.” Order No. 888-A at 30,197 (emphases

added). Since FERC expressly intends the right of first refusal

to apply not just to the original agreement but also to each

rollover as it expires, see, e.g., Southern Co. Servs., Inc., 110

F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,191 (2005) (disallowing rollover limitations made

in a successive rollover agreement), the word “contract” is

plainly used in both senses. Similarly, the pro forma tariff

attached to Order No. 888-A (as well as No. 888) states that

existing firm service customers “have the right to continue to

take transmission service from the Transmission Provider when

the contract expires, rolls over or is renewed.” Order No. 888-A

at 30,511 (emphasis added). The fact that “the contract . . . rolls

over” makes clear that it remains “the contract” even after

rollover. Indeed, the tariff’s insistence that the reservation

priority “is an ongoing right that may be exercised at the end of

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3The word “contract” is used in the same fashion throughout

Order No. 888 as well. See, e.g., Order No. 888 at 31,665 (stating that

firm transmission customers have the right to continue to take

transmission service “upon the expiration of their contracts or at the

time their contracts become subject to renewal or rollover”); id.

(stating that the right of first refusal “is an ongoing right that may be

exercised at the end of all firm contract (including all future unbundled

transmission contracts) terms”).

all firm contract terms of one-year or longer,” id. (emphases

added), makes sense only as a reference to repeated rollovers.3

FERC maintains that accepting Southern’s position would

“eviscerate” the right of first refusal, because it would “allow[]

providers to restrict rollover rights at the very time when they

are to be exercised.” FERC Br. at 32. But this unfairly

characterizes Southern’s argument. Southern does not contend

that it can restrict a right of first refusal that is currently being

exercised under an agreement that previously had no

restrictions. Rather, as is clear in the Oglethorpe filing that

FERC rejected, Southern seeks to add a limitation to the rolledover agreement that would not take effect until the next rollover.

Finally, we note that our conclusion is supported by the

Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that FERC issued in 2002,

which sought to codify the original agreement requirement

announced in Nevada Power. See Notice of Proposed

Rulemaking, 100 F.E.R.C. ¶ 61,138, ¶¶ 121-23, app. A. Unlike

Order No. 888-A, which states that a provider may “specify in

the contract that the right of first refusal does not apply to that

firm service due to a reasonably forecasted need at the time the

contract is executed,” Order No. 888-A at 30,198 (emphasis

added), the Notice proposed that a “Transmission Provider may

decline a Customer the ability to roll over its firm transmission

service . . . only if the Transmission Provider includes in the

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original service agreement a specific, reasonably forecasted

need for the transfer capability to serve load growth at the end

of the term of the service agreement.” Notice of Proposed

Rulemaking at app. A (emphasis added). The Notice

characterized this and two other changes not just as

“clarifications,” id. ¶ 121, but as “revisions [that] have a

significant impact on the rights of current transmission

customers,” id. ¶ 123 (emphases added), and it “propose[d] to

require public utilities to make the tariff changes to Section 2.2

of the existing pro forma tariff,” id. (emphasis added). This

characterization of its actions by the agency itself confirms that

the original agreement requirement does not derive from Order

No. 888-A, but rather constitutes a new FERC policy. Cf.

Kansas Cities v. FERC, 723 F.2d 82, 86 (D.C. Cir. 1983)

(Scalia, J.) (basing jurisdiction in part on FERC’s description of

its prior order).

We therefore conclude that Southern’s objection to the

original agreement requirement is not a collateral attack on

Order Nos. 888 or 888-A. Accordingly, there is no

jurisdictional bar to our considering the merits of FERC’s

rejection of the rollover limitations that Southern sought to place

in the Oglethorpe agreement.

IV

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, we must set aside

an agency action if it is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of

discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C.

§ 706(2)(A). The arbitrary and capricious standard requires an

agency to “examine the relevant data and articulate a

satisfactory explanation for its action including a ‘rational

connection between the facts found and the choice made.’”

Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass’n of the United States, Inc. v. State

Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43 (1983) (quoting

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Burlington Truck Lines, Inc. v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168

(1962)). Moreover, agency action “must be upheld, if at all, on

the basis articulated by the agency itself.” Id. at 50.

In its initial Oglethorpe order, FERC disallowed the

limitations in the rollover agreement solely on the ground that

the original agreement requirement had been announced in

Order Nos. 888 and 888-A. Oglethorpe Order at 61,370.

“Since issuing Order Nos. 888 and 888-A,” FERC said, it had

“consistently reaffirmed its policy . . . that a transmission

provider can deny a customer the ability to roll over . . . only if

the provider includes in the original service agreement a

specific limitation based on reasonably forecasted native load

needs.” Id. (emphasis in original). Because the limiting

language “was not in the original service agreement,” FERC

required Southern to remove it. Id.

In Southern’s request for rehearing, the company contended

that the original agreement requirement was not contained in

Order Nos. 888 and 888-A, but rather was a new policy

announced for the first time in Nevada Power -- a decision that

was not issued until after Southern executed its original service

agreement with Oglethorpe. Oglethorpe Order on Reh’g at

62,040. It would be arbitrary and capricious, Southern argued,

to apply a policy that did not exist at the time the parties entered

into their original agreement. Moreover, such application would

impede Southern’s ability to operate its transmission system

reliably. Southern asked that the new policy be applied, at most,

on a prospective basis. Id.

Again, FERC’s sole response was that Southern’s “claim

that the May 2, 2003 Order is based on a change in the

Commission’s rollover policy that did not exist at the time

[Southern] executed its original service agreement with

Oglethorpe is in error.” Id. Southern’s “request for rehearing,”

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FERC said, was “basically a collateral attack on the

Commission’s rollover rights policy as established in Order No.

888.” Id. And because FERC believed that Order Nos. 888 and

888-A had given transmission providers adequate notice, it

concluded that “any reliability issues that Southern Companies

might face would . . . be the result of its failure to follow the

requirements” of those Orders to reserve sufficient transmission

capacity in the original service agreement. Id. at 62,043.

In sum, FERC’s orders do not give any reason, other than

their insistence that Order Nos. 888 and 888-A put Southern on

notice of the original agreement requirement, for denying

Southern the right to place limitations in its rollover agreement

with Oglethorpe. They offer no rationale for applying the

requirement to a rollover when the provider did not know of the

requirement at the time it executed the original service

agreement. And they make no argument that system reliability

can still be assured if the requirement was imposed without

adequate notice. Accordingly, because we have concluded that

Order Nos. 888 and 888-A did not put Southern on notice of the

original agreement requirement, and thus that Southern did not

know of the requirement until after it executed its original

agreement with Oglethorpe, the agency is left with no reason for

rejecting Southern’s proposed rollover agreement. Because this

court “cannot sustain agency action on grounds other than those

adopted by the agency in the administrative proceedings,”

Macmillan Publ’g Co. v. NLRB, 194 F.3d 165, 168 (D.C. Cir.

1999) (citing SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80 (1943)), the

absence of a valid rationale renders FERC’s Oglethorpe orders

arbitrary and capricious. See, e.g., Fox Television Stations, Inc.

v. FCC, 280 F.3d 1027, 1043 (D.C. Cir. 2002).

Finally, we note that this case does not present the question

of whether it would be arbitrary and capricious for FERC to

apply its original agreement requirement to a case involving an

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original agreement executed after the requirement was

announced in Nevada Power. Accordingly, we do not reach that

question.

V

For the foregoing reasons, we dismiss Southern’s Williams

petition and vacate FERC’s Williams orders as moot. Further,

we grant Southern’s Oglethorpe petition and vacate and remand

FERC’s Oglethorpe orders as arbitrary and capricious. 

So ordered.

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