Opinion ID: 779823
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Threshold Questions for Jurisdiction

Text: 24 As stated above, Section 9(e)(5) of the Northwest Power Act permits a party disputing a final action of the BPA to bring such a petition to the Ninth Circuit within ninety days of the date that such action is deemed final. 16 U.S.C. § 839f(e)(5). In order to determine the timeliness of Puget Sound's petition in accordance with Section 9(e)(5), we must first determine the nature and timing of the actions that are being contested. If Puget Sound is simply contesting the substance or procedure of the CO-94 Rate Case, the ninety-day period for challenging that action had long elapsed before Puget Sound filed this petition because the CO-94 Rate Schedule was approved by the FERC in 1994. If, however, the question presented is a challenge to the implementation of the CO-94 rate during the true-up to actuals, then jurisdiction hinges on whether the claim was brought within ninety days of when such an implementation was properly deemed final. Alternatively, if it is the case that the challenge is to a rate established during the true-up to actuals in derogation of the requirements of Section 7(i), then there has been no final action which could create jurisdiction pursuant to the Act, but we might still have jurisdiction to hear the claim under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, and our inherent power of mandamus to issue orders necessary to preserve our prospective jurisdiction. See Pub. Util. Commiss'r v. BPA, 767 F.2d 622 (9th Cir.1985). 7 25 Looking directly to the substance of the claims raised by Puget Sound, we find that the dispute as to spare parts concerns a matter of implementation. In the original CO-94 rate-making, the rate for the Capacity Owners' section of the Third AC-Intertie was set at the cost of construction. While cost is admittedly a fairly thin specification of a rate which leaves much in the realm of applicable accounting potentially open to controversy, there is no such controversy on this part of the claim. Puget Sound does not challenge that it is a proper accounting of cost consistent with the rate established in the CO-94 rate proceeding to capitalize emergency spare parts of a unique nature, in other words to treat them as part of the lump-sum cost to the Capacity Owners. Nor does either party dispute that more common and fungible spare parts are properly treated as units of inventory that are expensed for accounting purposes and that would in this case be charged to Puget Sound through annual cost charges when used. Rather Puget Sound simply challenges the BPA's documentation of the fact that the particular spare parts at issue in this case are actually emergency spare parts of a unique nature. This is a quintessential implementation issue similar in kind to a customer's claim that a power company has overstated the amount of power sold at peak hour rather than off-peak hour rates. 26 We also find that Puget Sound's challenge to the overhead charge assessed by the BPA during the true-up to actuals is a challenge to the implementation of the CO-94 rate. During the CO-94 rate proceeding, witnesses for the BPA testified that overhead would be allocated to the construction costs of the Third AC Intertie project according to its normal allocation of corporate overhead. Puget Sound now claims that the BPA has not provided sufficient evidence that its normal practice includes charges of the type made to the capacity owners and points to various administrative documents purporting to show that this can not be proper. This claim would require us to compare the BPA's actual practice in calculating the cost to the Capacity Owners to a metric established in the CO-94 rate proceeding. As with the spare parts charge, this is a classic claim of improper implementation. 27 Alternatively, the dispute with regard to overhead could reasonably be characterized as a dispute over a rate set by the BPA either during the CO-94 Rate Case or during the true-up to actuals. A rate is simply a price stated or fixed for some commodity or service measured by a specific unit or standard. See Cal. Energy Res. Conservation and Dev. Comm'n v. Bonneville Power Admin., 831 F.2d 1467, 1472 (9th Cir.1987) (citing Black's Law Dictionary, 1134 (5th ed.1979)). Unlike the issue with regard to spare parts, Puget Sound is in this case challenging an action that goes to an accounting question as to how exactly cost was to be calculated in setting the price to the capacity owners. Further, Puget challenges whether it was given adequate notice of how the BPA intended to treat overhead charges on work performed by its construction partners during the CO-94 Rate Case. While this challenge is in the first instance a challenge directly to the propriety of the CO-94 Rate Case itself, it also suggests the possibility that the charge for overhead during true-up to actuals could be an action in the nature of establishing a rate if it is in fact the case that the rate was not adequately established in the prior proceeding. 28 However, given the fact that the overhead dispute is also a matter of implementation, this alternative way of framing the matter does not ultimately change our jurisdictional analysis. First, as a challenge to the CO-94 Rate Case, Puget Sound's claim would be untimely. Second, we are not convinced given the specific facts of this case that Schedule CO-94 and the accompanying ROD were so inadequate as to require the finding that the true-up to actuals was itself a rate-making. As noted above, Schedule CO-94 and the attached documents unambiguously indicated that overhead costs attributable to the Alvey-Meridian line would be charged to the Capacity Owners. Testimony in the ROD states at several points that costs include the BPA's normal allocation of corporate overhead and indirect expenses, indicating that the BPA would apply its standard accounting practices. The estimated price for the initial lump-sum payment for the Third AC Intertie also appears to have included this price as part of the application of planning estimates to the CO-94 methodology. Puget Sound, like the other Capacity Owners, had full opportunity during the CO-94 Rate Case to require further clarification on the BPA's standard accounting for construction costs. Particularly in light of the fact that Puget Sound was an active participant in negotiating the very transaction that the Schedule 94 Rate Case memorialized, we find that it was given sufficient notice of the price it was to be charged prior to the true-up to actuals. 29 Moreover, even if the true-up to actuals should properly be considered a rate-making, it would necessarily be non-final as such since the rate would have been made in derogation of the requirement to conduct a Section 7 proceeding. See 16 U.S.C. § 839e(i). Since the Northwest Power Act does not confer jurisdiction to consider such non-final actions, we would only have jurisdiction based on this theory of the claim in the extraordinary circumstance that it was necessary to issue a writ in the nature of a mandamus to compel a Section 7 proceeding pursuant to the All Writs Act in order to preserve our prospective jurisdiction. See Pub. Util. Comm'r of Oregon, 767 F.2d at 630. Since we may already exercise jurisdiction over the overhead claim as an implementation of an existing rate, it is not necessary to issue such a writ. 30 Thus, since 1) both of Puget Sound's substantive claims challenge the BPA's implementation of its rate for the Capacity Owner's portion of the Third AC Intertie in conducting the true-up to actuals, and 2) any claim challenging the CO-94 rate proceeding itself is clearly untimely; jurisdiction for either of Puget Sound's substantive claims depends on whether its July 1, 1999, claim was brought within ninety days of the time when consideration of claims related to the true-up to actuals became final. We now turn to that inquiry. 31