Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 335

174 

NRG  POWER  MARKETING,  LLC  v.  MAINE  PUB. 
UTIL.  COMM’N 
Opinion of the Court 

swering  no  to  the  ﬁrst  question  and  yes  to  the  second,  the 
Court  emphasized  the  essential  role  of  contracts  as  a  key 
factor  fostering  stability  in  the  electricity  market,  to  the 
long-run beneﬁt of consumers.  Id., at 547–548, 551; see, e. g., 
Market-Based  Rates  ¶ 6,  72  Fed.  Reg.  39906  (2007)  (not­
ing  chilling  effect  on  investments  caused  by  “uncertainties 
regarding  rate  stability  and  contract  sanctity”);  Nevada 
Power  Co.  v.  Duke  Energy  Trading  &  Marketing,  L.  L.  C., 
99  FERC  ¶ 61,047,  pp.  61,184,  61,190  (2002)  (“Competitive 
power  markets  simply  cannot  attract  the  capital  needed  to 
build adequate generating infrastructure without regulatory 
certainty,  including  certainty  that  the  Commission  will  not 
modify  market-based  contracts  unless  there  are  extraordi­
nary circumstances.”). 

Morgan  Stanley  did  not  reach  the  question  presented 
here: Does Mobile-Sierra’s public interest standard apply to 
challenges  to  contract  rates  brought  by  noncontracting  par­
ties?  But  Morgan  Stanley’s  reasoning  strongly  suggests 
that  the  D.  C.  Circuit’s  negative  answer  misperceives  the 
aim, and diminishes the force, of the Mobile-Sierra doctrine. 
In unmistakably plain language, Morgan Stanley restated 
Mobile-Sier ra’s instruction to the Commission: FERC 
“must  presume  that  the  rate  set  out  in  a  freely  negotiated 
wholesale-energy  contract  meets  the  ‘just  and  reasonable’ 
requirement  imposed  by  law.  The  presumption  may  be 
overcome only if FERC concludes that the contract seriously 
harms  the  public  interest.”  554  U. S.,  at  530.  As  our  in­
struction  to  FERC  in  Morgan  Stanley  conveys,  the  public 
interest  standard  is  not,  as  the  D.  C.  Circuit  presented  it,  a 
standard  independent  of,  and  sometimes  at  odds  with,  the 
“just and reasonable” standard, see 520 F. 3d, at 478; rather, 
the public interest standard deﬁnes “what it means for a rate 
to  satisfy  the  just-and-reasonable  standard  in  the  contract 
context,”  Morgan  Stanley,  554  U. S.,  at  546.  And  if  FERC 
itself  must  presume  just  and  reasonable  a  contract  rate  re­