Opinion ID: 185912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: issues

Text: 7 In response to the Company's suggestion that the Commission is bound by its previous determination that the reservoir is not subject to federal licensing requirements, the Commission maintains it is free to reexamine its findings in order to take account of changes in the relevant facts and the governing law. See Nantahala Power & Light Co. v. FPC, 384 F.2d 200, 206 (4th Cir.1967). The Commission points out that its initial determination rested upon a more restrictive definition of navigable waters than that subsequently adopted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 311 U.S. 377, 61 S.Ct. 291, 85 L.Ed. 243 (1940). Under the Commission's earlier approach a river that could be made navigable by improvements was not considered a navigable waterway. As a consequence, neither the Turtle-Flambeau reservoir nor the downstream power plants were subject to licensing, and the Commission therefore had no occasion to determine whether the reservoir might be necessary or appropriate to the operation of a licensed plant. 8 Now, by contrast, it is undisputed that the Flambeau River is navigable, and the Commission has licensed all the downstream plants (with the exception of one that is exempt). Therefore, the Commission argues, the precise question at issue — namely, whether the Turtle-Flambeau reservoir should be licensed because it is necessary or appropriate to the operation of a licensed plant — arose for the first time in this proceeding, and the Commission is not bound by the answer it gave to the jurisdictional question at an earlier time. See, e.g., Clark-Cowlitz Joint Operating Agency v. FERC, 826 F.2d 1074, 1079 (D.C.Cir.1987) (en banc) ([a] fundamental requisite of issue preclusion is an identity of the issue decided in the earlier action and that sought to be precluded in a later action). 9 In reply the Company relies upon an unrelated 1922 decision in which the Commission's predecessor disclaimed jurisdiction over hydroelectric projects — notwithstanding the presence upstream of a federally-licensed storage reservoir — on the ground that the Chippewa River was not navigable. See Federal Power Comm'n, Second Annual Report 61-62, 150-51 (1922). According to the Company, the Commission's action 10 clearly demonstrate[s] that, even if the Commission had jurisdiction over one component (i.e., over the upstream storage reservoir or over the downstream hydro projects benefitted by the storage reservoir) it was not in the 1920s asserting jurisdiction over the other component under a complete unit or any other theory. Thus, even if Appalachian Power had been the law in 1925 and the [Commission] had at that time asserted jurisdiction over the downstream hydroelectric projects on the Flambeau River based on their location on navigable waters, the [Commission] would not have asserted jurisdiction over Turtle-Flambeau. 11 The Company's argument asks too much of preclusion doctrine. Issue preclusion, upon which the Company purports to rely, applies only to issues that were actually litigated in a prior proceeding; it is undisputed that the Commission has never, prior to the present proceeding, considered whether the Turtle-Flambeau reservoir should be licensed because of its possible effects upon federally-licensed projects in the vicinity. With claim preclusion, the bar extends to claims that could have been brought, but even that extension avails the Company naught. In its 1925 order declining to exercise jurisdiction, the Commission could not have addressed whether jurisdiction could be based upon the reservoir's likely effects upon licensed plants because there were no such plants in the vicinity. In sum, the Company's speculation as to what might have happened in the 1925 proceeding if the law or the facts had been different is irrelevant. 12 At bottom, it seems the Company's plaint — the state has satisfactorily overseen the safety of the reservoir for 75 years — is merely that the reservoir should not be subjected to regulation by the Commission after so many years of uneventful freedom from its clutches. In the Federal Power Act, however, the Congress did not intend to create an indefeasible private right springing from an initial exercise of the Commission's regulatory authority, that would survive and remain immune from future regulation under any circumstances. Nantahala, 384 F.2d at 209. We agree with the Commission that the Supreme Court's decision in Appalachian Electric Power and its own subsequent licensing of downstream power plants are changes in the circumstances sufficient to justify the Commission's taking a second look at its jurisdiction over the Turtle-Flambeau reservoir. 13