Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 343.0

182 

NRG  POWER  MARKETING,  LLC  v.  MAINE  PUB. 
UTIL.  COMM’N 
Stevens, J., dissenting 

Otherwise, it would hardly serve to protect contract stability 
better  than  the  plain  vanilla  just-and-reasonable  standard 
and the Court’s decision in Morgan Stanley would have little 
effect.  Furthermore,  the  Court  today  reiterates  that  the 
doctrine poses a high bar.  See ante, at 173–174. 

It  was  sensible  to  require  a  contracting  party  to  show 
something  more  than  its  own  desire  to  get  out  of  what 
proved to be a bad bargain before FERC could abrogate the 
parties’  bargain.  It  is  not  sensible,  nor  authorized  by  the 
statute, for the Court to change the de facto standard of re­
view whenever a rate is set by private contract, based solely 
on  the  Court’s  view  that  contract  stability  should  be  pre­
served  unless  there  is  extraordinary  harm  to  the  public 
interest. 

For these reasons, I respectfully dissent. 

which did not negotiate the rate but must nonetheless purchase electricity 
at  that  price  in  the  forward capacity  market  unless  it  self-supplies  its  ca­
pacity—to  assert  their  private  interest  in  making  a  rate  challenge.  The 
Court suggests that FERC could set aside a rate under the public interest 
standard  if  the  contract  established  favorable  rates  between  allied  busi­
nesses  to  the  detriment  of  other  wholesale  customers,  ante,  at  175,  but 
has  not  spelled  out  whether  a  challenger  would  still  have  to  show  that 
circumstance  harmed  the  public  interest.  It  remains  unclear  whether  a 
noncontracting party that must purchase or sell electricity at a rate it did 
not  negotiate  could  argue  that  a  rate  fails  the  “public  interest  standard” 
because the rate is detrimental to that entity’s private interest.