Opinion ID: 197774
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The City of Manchester.

Text: 56 Like the other five appellants, the City of Manchester advances arguments grounded both in an asserted economic interest and an asserted administrative-proceeding interest. To the extent that these arguments replicate those made by the Grouped Appellants, we reject them for the reasons previously articulated. Still, the city's position is different in certain respects. 57 Manchester administers a municipal electric power aggregation program under which it procures electricity for several hundred municipal, residential, and commercial accounts. The number of accounts that it represents imbues the city with sufficient market power to acquire substantial rate discounts. Manchester supports the Plan because it believes that increased competition in the electric power market will allow it to secure even lower electric rates for the subscribers to the aggregation program. Manchester posits that this special interest as an aggregator justifies intervention as of right. 58 Notwithstanding this twist, the district court did not believe that Manchester's interest differed appreciably from the generalized economic interest asserted by each of the other appellants. See PSNH II, 173 F.R.D. at 23, 25-26. We discern no abuse of discretion in that ruling. By like token, we are unmoved by the city's insistence that, as administrator of the aggregation program, its interest is not merely in lower rates, but also in fostering an electric power market open to the greatest possible number of competitors. This recharacterization is more froth than brew. When all is said and done, Manchester seeks to promote a competitive market because it surmises that such a development will have a salutary effect on electric rates. 59 Manchester also attempts to distinguish its position on the ground that, due to the aggregation program, it is registered with the PUC as a supplier of electric power. But this brings us full circle. Manchester does not assert any interest that stems from its role as a supplier other than a desire to purchase power at the lowest possible rates and to pass the resultant savings to its subscribers. Hence, the claimed distinction fails to set Manchester apart from the other appellants in any material way. 60 Manchester has one remaining bullet in its intervention gun, but it too is a blank. The city notes that PSNH is one of its largest employers and taxpayers and, consequently, that it has a vital interest in PSNH's ability to remain a viable enterprise after market restructuring. While we have serious doubts that Manchester's paternalistic impulses satisfy Rule 24(a)(2)'s interest requirement at all, we need not decide that issue for two reasons. First, and most obviously, PSNH is the party with the singularly greatest interest in preserving its economic survival and can adequately represent that interest in this case. Second, Manchester's positions on the issues at stake in this litigation align perfectly with those of the PUC commissioners. 61 Manchester attempts to defuse the suggestion that it stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the defendants by loudly proclaiming its disagreement with the PUC's method of calculating PSNH's stranded cost recovery allowance. This is a very red herring. In the context of the lawsuit, the stranded costs issue mainly affects PSNH's takings claims. But Manchester, in its proffered answer to PSNH's complaint, see Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(c), denies that any of the PUC's actions amount to a confiscatory taking. At any rate, PSNH itself adequately will represent any interest that the city may have in contesting the SCRECH methodology embodied in the Plan. 62 Refined to bare essence, Manchester's campaign for intervention as of right reduces to its promise that it will offer a different angle on the legal questions in this lawsuit. This campaign promise, unamplified by any specifics, cannot bear the weight of a claim that adequate representation is lacking. See Moosehead Sanitary Dist., 610 F.2d at 54.