Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-23-01182/USCOURTS-caDC-23-01182-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Respondent
Hecate Energy LLC
Petitioner

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 6, 2024 Decided January 21, 2025

No. 23-1089

HECATE ENERGY LLC,

PETITIONER

v.

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION,

RESPONDENT

PJM INTERCONNECTION, L.L.C.,

INTERVENOR

Consolidated with 23-1182

On Petitions for Review of Orders 

of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Aaron M. Streett argued the cause for petitioner. With him 

on the briefs were Michael A. Yuffee, J. Mark Little, and 

Christopher E. Tutunjian.

Angela X. Gao, Attorney, Federal Energy Regulatory 

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

brief were Matthew R. Christiansen, General Counsel, and 

USCA Case #23-1182 Document #2095110 Filed: 01/21/2025 Page 1 of 19
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Robert H. Solomon. Susanna Y. Chu, Attorney, entered an 

appearance.

Wendy B. Warren argued the cause for intervenor in 

support of respondent. With her on the brief were Elizabeth P. 

Trinkle and David S. Berman.

Before: HENDERSON, PILLARD, and CHILDS, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Hecate Energy, LLC, develops 

and operates facilities to generate and store renewable power. 

It petitions for our review of two Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission orders that approve comprehensive reforms

proposed by PJM Interconnection, LLC, a regional 

transmission grid operator, to the criteria PJM uses to process 

requests to connect new electricity sources to the electrical

grid. One issue PJM faces in processing interconnection 

requests is whether connecting new sources will require 

upgrades to the grid and, if so, how upgrade costs will be 

allocated among generators seeking to connect. Hecate 

challenges a single aspect of FERC’s orders: Its approval of

PJM’s proposal to help clear its backlog of pending 

interconnection requests by expediting requests that are 

projected to be assessed upgrade costs of $5 million or less. 

FERC defends its orders on the merits, but it first contests 

Hecate’s standing to challenge the orders in court. We hold 

that Hecate lacks Article III standing to challenge the $5 

million cap, and therefore dismiss its petitions for review. 

Hecate’s injury is not redressable because the relief it requests 

from this court—vacatur of FERC’s approval of PJM’s 

comprehensive reform package—is unlikely to lead to the 

expediting of its over-$5 million project. 

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BACKGROUND

A.

Section 205 of the Federal Power Act requires electric 

utilities’ rates and rules for transmitting electricity to be “just 

and reasonable” and not “undu[ly] preferen[tial].” 16 U.S.C. 

§ 824d(a), (b). Under Section 205 and the Federal Energy 

Regulatory Commission’s (FERC or Commission)

implementing regulations, when a regional transmission 

organization like PJM seeks to change any rates or rules, it 

must file the proposed changes with the Commission. Id.

§ 824d(d); 18 C.F.R. § 35.34(j)(1)(iii). “FERC must accept 

proposed rate changes filed under Section 205 so long as the 

changes are just and reasonable” and not unduly 

discriminatory. NRG Power Mktg., LLC v. FERC, 862 F.3d 

108, 113 (D.C. Cir. 2017); 16 U.S.C. § 824d(a), (b).

In evaluating proposed rule changes under Section 205, 

FERC plays “an essentially passive and reactive role.” 

Advanced Energy Mgmt. All. v. FERC, 860 F.3d 656, 662 (D.C. 

Cir. 2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). “FERC may 

accept or reject the proposal,” but it may not “suggest 

modifications that result in an entirely different rate design than 

the utility’s original proposal or the utility’s prior rate scheme.” 

NRG Power, 862 F.3d at 114-15 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). The Commission may not propose modifications that 

“und[o] the compromise that had been the basis for [the] 

proposal” or “eviscerate[] the terms of the bargain” underlying 

the original proposal. Id. at 116.

B.

PJM is a regional transmission organization—an 

independent, non-profit, FERC-approved entity that manages 

the electrical grid covering parts of 13 Mid-Atlantic and 

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Midwestern states and the District of Columbia. See Advanced 

Energy, 860 F.3d at 659. One of PJM’s responsibilities is to 

facilitate the interconnection of new power sources to the grid. 

See FPL Energy Marcus Hook, L.P. v. FERC, 430 F.3d 441, 

443 (D.C. Cir. 2005). That process involves conducting 

multiple studies to determine what network upgrades (if any) 

are necessary to support the connection of new generators to 

the grid, and how the costs of those required upgrades—which 

“improve the network for the benefit of all users,” Exxon Mobil 

Corp. v. FERC, 571 F.3d 1208, 1212-13 (D.C. Cir. 2009)—

should be allocated among the various generators seeking to 

connect. See Marcus Hook, 430 F.3d at 443.

For decades, PJM has used a serial, “first-come, firstserved” model for acting on interconnection requests, in which 

“[t]he submission of an interconnection request triggers a 

review by [PJM] and holds the requestor’s place in the 

interconnection queue” until PJM conducts the requisite 

studies, allocates network upgrade costs, and provides the 

generator with a proposed interconnection service agreement. 

ESI Energy, LLC v. FERC, 892 F.3d 321, 325 (D.C. Cir. 2018). 

In recent years, that serial, “first-come, first-served” model has 

not kept up with the rising number of interconnection requests, 

leading to delays in connecting new generators to the grid.

The current system’s rules incentivize project developers 

to submit speculative and duplicative interconnection requests 

that they often withdraw late in the study process. For 

example, submitting an interconnection request is relatively 

cheap, there are few requirements for a project to keep its place 

in the queue, and projects may withdraw from the queue at any 

time with minimal financial penalty. In fact, the vast majority 

of interconnection requests are withdrawn before the requestor 

signs a final interconnection service agreement: Of requests 

submitted between January 2020 and February 2021, 80% were 

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withdrawn during the review process. In addition, PJM 

determines and assigns network upgrade costs based in part on 

a project’s queue position relative to other requests. For 

instance, if there is still enough excess capacity in the grid to 

accommodate the connection of another generator, a project 

submitted earlier in time might not have to pay for network 

upgrades necessitated by the connection of generators farther 

down in the queue. See Marcus Hook, 430 F.3d at 444. 

Because of that, almost every withdrawal requires PJM to restudy and potentially re-allocate network upgrade costs among

the projects that remain in the queue behind the withdrawn

project. Given large increases in the number of interconnection 

requests in recent years, the rules countenancing such a grossly 

inefficient cycle of withdrawals and restudies have hamstrung 

PJM’s ability to timely connect new generators to the grid and 

contributed to a backlog of 1,857 interconnection requests in 

various stages of study.

To address those issues, PJM organized a two-and-a-halfyear process during which its stakeholders developed, 

negotiated, and approved a comprehensive package of reforms

to PJM’s interconnection process. The proposed reforms—

approved by 87% of PJM’s Markets and Reliability Committee 

and 90% of PJM’s Members Committee—are designed to 

transition PJM to a cluster-based approach. Under that new 

approach, all interconnection requests submitted during a 

defined time period are grouped together for joint study and 

cost allocation in one review cycle. By enabling a single study 

and simultaneous cost allocation to all projects within a review 

cycle, and by also limiting project modifications and 

withdrawals to specific periods during the cycle, the clusterbased approach eliminates the need for iterative, inefficient

restudies. Those changes allow PJM to perform a single 

“retool” study of previously performed analyses at the end of 

the cycle to account for all withdrawals during the cycle. The 

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proposed reforms also aim to reduce the number of speculative 

requests and late-stage withdrawals by imposing more 

stringent requirements for projects to enter and remain in the 

interconnection approval process.

The reform package also includes exhaustively negotiated 

rules governing the transition from PJM’s legacy, serial 

process to the new cluster-based approach. While most 

stakeholders wanted their pending projects to remain under the 

serial process, PJM sought to quickly transition to the clusterbased process so it could more efficiently clear its large 

backlog of requests. To balance those competing interests in 

serial versus cluster-based consideration, the transition rules

temporarily preserve a serial “Expedited Process” open to 

projects submitted between April 2018 and September 2020

whose network upgrade cost allocation is estimated at $5 

million or less. Under the transition rules, PJM will first 

serially consider and allocate costs to projects under the 

Expedited Process. It will then study and act on all other 

projects under the new cluster-based approach.

The $5 million cap for Expedited Process eligibility was a 

“carefully negotiated term that active PJM stakeholders 

debated extensively during the stakeholder process,” including 

by “discuss[ing] alternative proposals for the transition 

mechanism at great length” and “debat[ing] the impacts such 

proposals would have on projects in the various queue 

windows,” and on PJM’s ability to clear its backlog. 

Comments in Support of Pine Gate Renewables, LLC and 

Cypress Creek Renewables, LLC at 9 (J.A. 391). Indeed, of all 

of the aspects of the proposed reforms, “the question of a 

[t]ransition process and how it should be structured involved 

the most compromise among stakeholders in order to achieve 

the consensus that was reached on the overall reform package.” 

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PJM Tariff Revisions for Interconnection Process Reform at 42

(J.A. 80).

C.

In June 2022, PJM filed its final package of proposed 

reforms for the Commission’s approval under Section 205. 

Hecate intervened, filing a “limited protest” to PJM’s proposed 

reforms. Mot. to Intervene and Limited Protest of Hecate 

Energy LLC at 1 (J.A. 295). Hecate was “generally very 

supportive” of the reform package but asked the Commission 

to reject the $5 million cap for eligibility in the Expedited 

Process. Id. Hecate argued that the $5 million cutoff for 

participation in the limited extension of project-specific, firstto-file processing was both “arbitrary” and “unduly 

discriminatory” because, it claimed, PJM failed to advance an 

evidence-based, rational justification for distinguishing 

between projects below and above its proposed $5 million cap. 

Id. at 7-12 (J.A. 301-06). 

The Commission approved PJM’s proposed package of 

reforms, including the $5 million cap for inclusion in the 

Expedited Process and cluster-based review for more 

expensive projects and for projects submitted after September 

2020. FERC denied Hecate’s request for rehearing. In both its 

order accepting PJM’s reforms and its order explaining its 

denial of Hecate’s rehearing request, the Commission 

determined that PJM had reasonably justified the $5 million 

cap in light of its experience that projects assigned network 

upgrade costs of up to $5 million were simpler and quicker to

process than those assigned costs above $5 million.

Hecate petitioned for our review of both orders. We 

granted PJM’s motion for leave to intervene in support of the 

Commission.

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DISCUSSION

Hecate argues that the Commission acted arbitrarily and 

capriciously in concluding that the $5 million cap was not 

“unduly discriminatory” under Section 205. Specifically, 

Hecate maintains that the Commission’s determination was not 

supported by substantial evidence because PJM’s purported 

experience was insufficient and that it was arbitrary and 

capricious in its failure to consider alternative eligibility rules 

for the Expedited Process that include projects above the $5 

million cutoff. We do not reach the merits arguments because 

Hecate lacks standing to raise them. 

The “irreducible constitutional minimum” of standing has 

three familiar parts: injury in fact, causation, and redressability. 

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330, 338 (2016) (quoting 

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992)). The 

party invoking federal court jurisdiction bears the burden of 

establishing each of those elements. Id.

Hecate’s claimed injury-in-fact is the exclusion of at least 

one of its projects from the Expedited Process. Hecate has five 

projects pending in PJM’s queue that will be sorted into either

the Expedited Process or a cluster-based review cycle, 

depending on each project’s estimated assigned network 

upgrade costs. At least one of those projects has such assigned 

costs of over $5 million and is therefore excluded from the 

Expedited Process. According to Hecate, that exclusion will 

cause it significant and expensive delays.

FERC argues that Hecate’s claimed injury is too 

speculative to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement because 

one or more of its four other pending projects may be eligible 

for the Expedited Process, which means that Hecate could

enjoy a net benefit from the Expedited Process eligibility rules 

it challenges. We need not embrace the Commission’s netUSCA Case #23-1182 Document #2095110 Filed: 01/21/2025 Page 8 of 19
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benefit theory or determine whether Hecate has otherwise

alleged an injury-in-fact because, even if it has, it fails to

demonstrate that its claimed injury is redressable.

“Redressability examines whether the relief sought, 

assuming that the court chooses to grant it, will likely alleviate 

the particularized injury alleged by the plaintiff.” Fla. 

Audubon Soc’y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d 658, 663-64 (D.C. Cir. 

1996) (en banc). As we have previously stated, “[t]he key word 

is ‘likely.’” West v. Lynch, 845 F.3d 1228, 1235 (D.C. Cir. 

2017) (quoting Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561). When, as in this case,

“a plaintiff’s asserted injury arises from the government’s 

allegedly unlawful regulation (or lack of regulation) of 

someone else”—here, PJM—“redressability . . . hinge[s] on 

the response of the regulated (or regulable) third party to the 

government action or inaction—and perhaps on the response of 

others as well.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 562. That makes it

“substantially more difficult to establish” redressability, as it 

would depend on future choices by PJM, “whose exercise of 

broad and legitimate discretion the courts cannot presume 

either to control or to predict.” Id. (internal quotation marks 

omitted). Indeed, we recently noted that redressability in cases 

where “plaintiffs sue the government in order to change thirdparty behavior” imposes “a significant barrier [to establishing 

standing]—courts have routinely rejected suits for injunctive 

relief that are directed against executive agencies but that seek 

to change the behavior of third parties.” Johnson v. Becerra, 

111 F.4th 1237, 1244 (D.C. Cir. 2024).

Such an injury is still redressable if the court’s action will 

“amount to a significant increase in the likelihood that the 

plaintiff w[ill] obtain relief that directly redresses the injury 

suffered.” Utah v. Evans, 536 U.S. 452, 464 (2002). But the 

record must “present[] substantial evidence of a causal 

relationship between the government policy and the third-party 

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conduct, leaving little doubt as to . . . the likelihood of redress.” 

Nat’l Wrestling Coaches Ass’n v. Dep’t of Educ., 366 F.3d 930, 

941 (D.C. Cir. 2004). If it is instead “just as plausible” that the 

court’s action will not redress the plaintiff’s injury as that it 

will, Article III’s redressability requirement is not met. Simon 

v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 43-46 (1976). Put 

otherwise, “standing theories that require guesswork as to how 

independent decisionmakers will exercise their judgment” do 

not suffice; “[r]ather than guesswork, [] plaintiffs must show 

that the third-party [actor] will likely react in predictable ways 

to the defendants’ conduct.” Murthy v. Missouri, 603 U.S. 43, 

57-58 (2024) (internal quotation marks omitted).

For instance, in Simon v. Eastern Kentucky Welfare Rights 

Organization, the plaintiffs challenged an IRS revenue ruling 

rescinding the requirement that hospitals offer free healthcare 

to low-income populations in order to receive favorable tax 

treatment. 426 U.S. at 28-32. The plaintiffs, who lived below 

the poverty line, alleged that the ruling injured them by 

depriving them of free hospital services. Id. at 32-33, 40-41. 

As relevant to redressability, they contended that ordering the 

IRS to rescind the revenue ruling would cause the hospitals to 

resume providing the free services in order to retain the 

favorable tax treatment attending nonprofit status. Id. at 42-43. 

The Court rejected that argument, holding that the plaintiffs 

failed to demonstrate redressability because it was “just as 

plausible” that, if the Court invalidated the revenue ruling, the 

hospitals would “elect to forgo favorable tax treatment to avoid 

the undetermined financial drain of an increase in the level of 

uncompensated services.” Id. at 43. The plaintiffs accordingly 

failed to allege a “substantial likelihood” that their injury 

would be redressed by “victory in this suit.” Id. at 45-46.

Utah v. Evans further demonstrates the tight causal 

connection between the plaintiff’s requested relief and the 

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redress of their asserted injury necessary to establish standing.

There, Utah complained that the Census Bureau’s unlawful use 

of a particular method of imputing census data had overcounted 

North Carolina’s population relative to Utah’s, causing Utah to 

lose a House seat to North Carolina. Evans, 536 U.S. at 457-

59. Utah sought an injunction ordering the census officials to 

recalculate the population numbers and recertify the official 

census result—relief that the courts could order. Id. at 459-61. 

But Utah’s injury would be redressed only if the President then 

submitted those recertified numbers to Congress and the Clerk 

of the House of Representatives sent certificates to each state 

specifying the number of representatives to which they were 

entitled. Id. at 461. The Court held that Utah’s injury was 

redressable because it was “substantially likely that the 

President and other executive and congressional officials” 

would carry out the “purely mechanical” “calculations and 

consequent apportionment-related steps” necessary to convert 

the court-ordered census report into an additional 

representative for Utah. Id. at 463-64 (internal quotation marks 

omitted).

Utah’s injury was redressable in Evans because, even 

though the court’s action would not directly redress the injury, 

it would very likely spur the next steps necessary to redress it. 

By contrast, in Simon the plaintiffs’ injury was not redressable 

because, given the various considerations in play, the hospitals 

were just as likely to continue to deny plaintiffs free services 

as they were to reverse course in response to a court order 

changing the tax implications of the denial. 426 U.S. at 43-44.

Hecate’s situation is akin to that of the plaintiffs in Simon. 

Hecate asks us to vacate FERC’s order approving the $5 

million cap as arbitrary and capricious. But Hecate does not 

show that our doing so would make it likely—let alone 

“substantially likely,” Evans, 536 U.S. at 464—that its 

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requested relief would spur PJM to take the additional steps 

necessary to include Hecate’s project in its Expedited Process. 

Rather, it is “just as plausible” (and in fact more plausible) that 

its injury would not be redressed by its requested relief.

Hecate’s injury would be redressed only if, after our 

vacatur, PJM re-submitted its complete package of proposed 

reforms with a change to the Expedited Process eligibility rules 

to include at least some projects, including Hecate’s, assessed 

over $5 million in network upgrade costs. But, given PJM’s 

aims, incentives, and independent decisionmaking authority,

that outcome is particularly unlikely. Both the Commission 

and this court lack the authority in response to Hecate’s claim 

to direct PJM to make that change. And PJM would have a 

wide array of options for curing the alleged defect with the $5 

million cap that do not involve—and are more conducive to its 

goals than—expediting projects assessed over $5 million in 

network upgrade costs. 

Recall that in a Section 205 proceeding, “the Commission 

undertakes an essentially passive and reactive role and restricts 

itself to evaluating the confined proposal.” Advanced Energy, 

860 F.3d at 662 (internal quotation marks omitted). “FERC 

may accept or reject the proposal,” and it can suggest “minor” 

modifications to the proposal. NRG Power, 862 F.3d at 114-

15. But it cannot insist on or even suggest modifications that 

“result in an entirely different rate design than the utility’s 

original proposal,” including modifications that “und[o] the 

compromise that had been the basis for PJM’s proposal” and 

“eviscerate[] the terms of the bargain” underlying the original 

proposal. Id. at 114-16 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

The eligibility rules for the Expedited Process, including 

the $5 million cap, were the subject of extensive negotiation 

and compromise among PJM’s stakeholders. Under the 

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strictures described in NRG Power, the Commission thus 

cannot modify PJM’s proposal by removing the $5 million cap, 

as Hecate concedes. If we were to vacate FERC’s orders, the 

Commission would have no choice but to reject PJM’s entire

package of reforms, at which point PJM would be free to resubmit a new comprehensive proposal to attempt to cure the 

putative arbitrariness of the challenged $5 million cap. 

There are a number of ways PJM could accomplish that 

goal. If we were to hold that PJM failed to support the $5 

million cap with substantial evidence, PJM might bolster its

evidentiary basis for using $5 million as the dividing line

between relatively simple, quick-to-process projects and more 

complex, time-intensive ones. Evidence that the cap is a nonarbitrary basis of distinction would cure the claimed defect 

because “mere differential treatment of two entities” does not 

violate Section 205; rather, it amounts to undue discrimination 

“only if the entities are similarly situated, such that there is no 

reason for the difference.” City of Lincoln v. FERC, 89 F.4th 

926, 935 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

But such a fix would do nothing to afford Hecate the expedited 

treatment it seeks. Alternatively, if we held that the 

Commission unjustifiably failed to consider alternatives to the 

$5 million cutoff by which PJM could accomplish its goals

while expediting projects like Hecate’s, PJM might 

demonstrate on remand why those alternatives do not 

accomplish the necessary objectives advanced by the $5 

million rule. Again, that fix would not redress Hecate’s injury.

Taking a different tack, PJM could abandon the $5 million 

cap and select an entirely different rule governing eligibility for 

the Expedited Process with no guarantee that the new rule 

would encompass Hecate’s project. For instance, PJM might 

expedite only projects submitted before a certain date or 

pending for a certain duration. Or, as the Commission noted in 

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its Rehearing Order, PJM could abandon the Expedited Process 

entirely. That would eliminate the $5 million limit Hecate 

views as arbitrary, but would provide no expedited treatment 

to any project, including Hecate’s.

As these examples illustrate, a court order invalidating the 

$5 million cap leaves PJM with myriad options that would 

resolve the defect without redressing Hecate’s asserted injury

of exclusion from the Expedited Process. Thus, while it is 

possible that vacatur of the Commission’s order would 

expedite Hecate’s project, that outcome cannot fairly be 

described as “likely.” 

Indeed, it is particularly unlikely that PJM would adopt a 

rule allowing projects with over $5 million in assessed network 

upgrade costs to participate in the Expedited Process. In its 

filing requesting FERC’s acceptance of its proposed tariff 

reforms, PJM explained that expanding access to the Expedited 

Process “would not only be contrary to the results of the 

stakeholder process, but would delay implementation of PJM’s 

Cycle process, and harm PJM’s efforts to clear its 

interconnection backlog.” PJM Tariff Revisions for 

Interconnection Process Reform at 42 (J.A. 80). In light of the 

critical necessity of clearing its backlog and quickly 

transitioning to a cycle-based process, PJM is unlikely to 

choose to expand the Expedited Process as Hecate urges. 

The likelihood that PJM would expand the Expedited 

Process is further diminished given that PJM’s stakeholders 

earlier expressly rejected at least one such proposal. During 

the stakeholder process, Hecate proposed modifying the $5 

million cap so that projects assessed network upgrade costs 

over $5 million would be allowed to enter the Expedited 

Process so long as the developer posted security covering the 

costs allocated to that project. Only 30% of stakeholders 

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expressed support for that proposal, which is far short of the 

required two-thirds majority needed for approval. While 

changed circumstances could conceivably affect the degree of 

stakeholder support, that failed vote demonstrates

stakeholders’ negative reaction to the proposed expansion of 

the Expedited Process in a way that would include Hecate’s 

project. 

In sum, if we were to vacate the Commission’s orders 

under either of Hecate’s theories, PJM would have multiple 

avenues for correcting the deficiency that would be more 

conducive to its goals than modifying the Expedited Process 

eligibility rules in a way that expedites its review of Hecate’s

over-$5 million project. It is thus not only “just as plausible,” 

but in fact more plausible that PJM would respond to Hecate’s 

“victory in this suit” with a new package of proposed reforms 

that would not provide Hecate the expediting it seeks. Simon, 

426 U.S. at 43-46. Accordingly, Hecate has failed to 

demonstrate that its injury is redressable. 

This result accords with our many other decisions applying 

Simon, in which we have held that plaintiffs fail to establish 

redressability when their injury is caused by “third parties who 

took actions because of allegedly unlawful agency decisions, 

but who would have no compelling reason to reverse those 

actions were the decisions held unlawful by a court.” Bennett 

v. Donovan, 703 F.3d 582, 587 (D.C. Cir. 2013). For instance, 

in National Wrestling Coaches Ass’n v. Department of 

Education—“[o]ur seminal case discussing standing in the 

context of a regulated third party,” Bennett, 703 F.3d at 587—

several men’s wrestling organizations challenged Title IX 

guidance documents issued by the Department of Education, 

claiming they incentivized schools to eliminate men’s 

wrestling programs. Nat’l Wrestling, 366 F.3d at 934-36. We 

held that revoking the guidance would not redress the

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plaintiffs’ asserted injury because schools had independent 

reasons “unrelated to the challenged legal requirements” not to 

reinstate men’s wrestling teams, regardless of the challenged 

guidance. Id. at 939-40. Similarly, in Renal Physicians Ass’n 

v. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 489 F.3d 

1267 (D.C. Cir. 2007), a medical association challenged an 

agency regulation that allegedly caused clinics to reduce the 

wages of the association’s members. Id. at 1271. We held that 

its injury was not redressable because, even if the regulation 

were invalidated, the clinics would have independent economic 

reasons to continue paying the reduced wages. Id. at 1276-78. 

And in Johnson v. Becerra, Medicare beneficiaries with 

chronic illnesses challenged agency policies that allegedly 

facilitated home health companies’ denial of services to 

chronically ill Medicare patients. 111 F.4th at 1242-43. We 

held that the lack of service was not redressable because the 

home health companies had “many economic and practical 

reasons” to continue denying service regardless of the agency’s 

policies. Id. at 1245-46.

Hecate’s situation presents a slight variation on these 

cases, in that respondent FERC did not require PJM to impose 

the challenged $5 million cap on expedited review; PJM did so 

of its own accord, subject to FERC approval. But this case 

shares the key characteristic fatal to redressability that 

reversing the agency’s action will not remove PJM’s incentive 

or ability to continue inflicting the asserted injury—here, 

excluding Hecate’s project from expedited review. That 

scenario makes it unlikely, in the absence of other indications, 

that reversing the agency’s action will redress the claimant’s 

injury. Here, for instance, for all the reasons discussed above,

even if we were to invalidate FERC’s approval of the $5 

million cap as arbitrary and capricious, PJM would have other, 

independent reasons and means to exclude Hecate’s project 

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from expedited review, making it unlikely that vacating the 

Commission’s orders would redress Hecate’s injury.

Importantly, Hecate does not suggest—nor do we see how 

it could—that its injury stems from the Commission’s failure 

to follow proper procedures, and that it is thus entitled to 

establish redressability under the relaxed standard that 

recognizes standing based on procedural injuries without the 

claimant “having to show that proper procedures would have 

caused the agency to take a different substantive action.” Renal 

Physicians, 489 F.3d at 1278-79. Nor does Hecate contend that 

the allegedly arbitrary exclusion of its project from the 

Expedited Process inflicts a stigmatic, “noneconomic” injury 

by signaling that Hecate is a member of an “innately inferior” 

group of “less worthy participants in the political community,” 

such that simply eliminating the Expedited Process would 

redress its injury. Heckler v. Mathews, 465 U.S. 728, 739 

(1984) (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, Hecate 

asserts a run-of-the-mill substantive economic injury that must 

meet the ordinary standards for redressability, which require 

Hecate to show that the relief sought will “likely alleviate” its

asserted injury. Fla. Audubon Soc’y, 94 F.3d at 663-64. 

Hecate contends that, under our decision in Orangeburg v. 

FERC, 862 F.3d 1071 (D.C. Cir. 2017), it has shown 

redressability insofar as an order from this court invalidating 

the $5 million cap would “diminish the obstacles” preventing 

it from gaining access to the Expedited Process. Id. at 1084. 

But, as we have explained, the mere “possibility that 

[petitioners] may have ‘better odds’ of [obtaining] their desired 

[relief] plainly falls far short of the mark.” Nat’l Wrestling, 

366 F.3d at 942. Orangeburg is not to the contrary. There,

North Carolina power supplier Duke Energy agreed to the 

interstate sale of electricity to the city of Orangeburg, South 

Carolina at cheap, “native load” rates until a North Carolina 

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state agency enforced a state-regulatory condition on Duke—

imposed as part of a merger agreement with another utility 

years earlier—that limited its native-load pricing to customers 

that agency approved. Orangeburg, 862 F.3d at 1074-76. 

Once the state agency denied approval to Duke’s proposed 

contract for sale into South Carolina and decided to treat Duke 

as receiving phantom income from Orangeburg under state law 

(effectively suppressing the price Duke could charge its in-state 

customers), Duke backed out of the deal. Id. Orangeburg 

challenged FERC’s approval of a later merger agreement that 

imposed the state agency’s same pricing constraint on Duke, 

which in Orangeburg’s view amounted to interstate wholesale 

rate regulation preempted by the Federal Power Act. Id. at 

1076-77. 

We held that Orangeburg’s injury was redressable because 

this court’s conclusion that the later merger agreement 

“enact[ed] a regime in which [the North Carolina state agency] 

[wa]s empowered to act as a gatekeeper for interstate wholesale 

power transactions[] in violation of [federal law]” would 

remove the primary obstacle to Orangeburg’s ability to buy 

cheap power from Duke. Id. at 1083. “Such a determination” 

would make it “likely” (even if not certain) that Duke would 

again agree to sell to Orangeburg at native-load prices. Id. at 

1084. 

Granted, like PJM, the state agency in Orangeburg also 

had various options to choose from in reacting to this court’s 

judgment that vacated FERC’s approval of Duke’s later merger 

agreement. Because the state agency was not directly bound 

by Orangeburg, it might have persisted in enforcing its 

regulatory ascription of phantom income to Duke under the 

earlier merger deal. After all, “[i]t is a federal court’s 

judgment, not its opinion, that remedies an injury; thus it is the 

judgment, not the opinion, that demonstrates redressability.” 

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Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255, 294 (2023). And FERC 

had “repeatedly sidestepped the legal issues” and “declined to 

preempt [the state agency’s] alleged gatekeeping regime” as 

part of a “pattern of acquiescence,” so it was perhaps fair to 

assume that FERC would continue to tolerate some state 

encroachment on its jurisdiction going forward. Orangeburg, 

862 F.3d at 1074, 1081. 

However, Orangeburg is distinguishable from this case. It 

would be far easier for PJM to bolster its evidence for the $5 

million cap or explain more thoroughly why it rejected 

Hecate’s proposed alternatives than it would have been for the 

state agency in Orangeburg to somehow legitimate a scheme 

that impinged on FERC’s exclusive jurisdiction. As we 

explained in Orangeburg, the state agency was “unlikely to 

maintain its policy” once it was “[f]aced with [] a decision from 

a federal court” declaring that policy unlawful. Id. at 1084. 

Even if the state agency did so with regard to Duke’s earlier 

merger agreement, Orangeburg could contract with a different 

North Carolina utility to obtain cheap energy and point to 

Orangeburg if the state agency sought to block that deal.

Here, by contrast, there is no clear path from an order 

invalidating the $5 million cap to the likely inclusion of 

Hecate’s projects in the Expedited Process. To the contrary, as 

we have explained, it is significantly more likely that PJM 

would remedy the defect Hecate claims via a modification that 

would not expedite the Hecate project at issue. Such a remote 

likelihood of redress defeats Hecate’s claimed standing.

* * *

For the foregoing reasons, the petitions for review are

dismissed for lack of standing.

So ordered.

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