Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 342.0

Cite as: 558 U. S. 165 (2010) 

181 

Stevens, J., dissenting 

today  imposes  additional  limits  upon  FERC’s  ability  to  pro­
tect  that  interest.  If  a  third-party  wholesale  buyer  can 
show a rate harms the public interest (perhaps because it is 
too high to be just and reasonable under normal review), but 
cannot  show  it  seriously  harms  the  public,  FERC  may  do 
nothing about it.3 

The  Court  assures  respondents  that  the  “public  interest 
standard”  does  not  “overlook  third-party  interests”  and  is 
“framed with a view to their protection.”  Ante, at 174, 175. 
Perhaps  in  practice  the  Mobile-Sierra  doctrine  will  protect 
third  parties’  interests,  and  the  public  interest,  just  as  well 
as  the  so-called  “ordinary”  just-and-reasonable  standard. 
But  respondents  are  rightly  skeptical.  The  Mobile-Sierra 
doctrine,  as  interpreted  by  the  Court  in  Morgan  Stanley, 
must pose a higher bar to respondents’ rate challenge—that 
is,  it  requires  them  to  show  greater  harm  to  the  public.4 

3 FERC  agrees  with petitioners  that  the  public  interest standard  “gov­
ern[s] all challenges to the rates set by contract, regardless of the identity 
of  the  challenger.”  Reply  Brief  for  FERC 4.  But  “not  even  FERC  has 
the  authority  to  endorse  [this]  rule.”  Morgan  Stanley,  554  U. S.,  at  563 
(Stevens, J., dissenting).  “The FPA does not indulge, much less require, 
a ‘practically insurmountable’ presumption, see Papago Tribal Util. Auth. 
v.  FERC, 723 F. 2d 950, 954 (CADC 1983) (opinion for the court by Scalia, 
J.), that all rates set by contract comport with the public interest and are 
therefore just and reasonable.”  Id., at 563–564. 

4 In  my  view,  “whether  a  rate  is  ‘just  and  reasonable’  is  measured 
against  the  public  interest,  not  the  private  interests  of  regulated  [par­
ties].”  Id.,  at  561.  But  I  note  the  Court’s  assertion  that  the  Mobile-
Sierra  doctrine  protects  “third-party  interests,”  ante,  at  175,  is  a  new 
twist  on  the  “public  interest  standard”  as  traditionally  understood.  As 
the  Court  recognized  in  Morgan  Stanley,  one  consequence  of  applying 
Mobile-Sierra is that “ ‘the sole concern of the Commission’ ” is the public 
interest, and FERC cannot consider, for example, whether a rate guaran­
tees  a  sufﬁcient  rate  of  return  to  a  regulated  entity.  554  U. S.,  at  533 
(quoting  FPC  v.  Sierra  Paciﬁc  Power  Co.,  350  U. S.  348,  355  (1956));  see 
also Morgan Stanley, 554 U. S., at 566, n. 3.  In addition to requiring that 
FERC  ﬁnd  some  greater  degree  of  harm  to  the  public  than  would  be  re­
quired  under  the  ordinary  just-and-reasonable  standard,  therefore,  the 
Mobile-Sierra doctrine leaves little room for respondents—at least one of