Opinion ID: 1984632
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Legislative Acceptance

Text: Petitioner Texas-New Mexico Power Company offers an additional argument in support of the rules. It asserts that the Legislature accepted the Commission's construction of PURA95 when it codified the statute in 1997. But the doctrine of legislative acceptance applies when an agency interpretation of an ambiguous statute has been in effect for a long time and the Legislature re-enacts the statute without change. [93] That is not the case here. The Legislature did not re-enact PURA95, but rather codified it. And the Commission's interpretation of the statute at that time was new, and already subject to a court challenge in this case. Finally, in 1999 the Legislature did amend chapter 35. In the 1999 amendments to chapter 35, the Legislature specified that the Commission: shall price wholesale transmission services within ERCOT based on the postage stamp method of pricing under which a transmission-owning utility's rate is based on the ERCOT utilities' combined annual costs of transmission divided by the total demand placed on the combined transmission systems of all such transmission-owning utilities within a power region. [94] Thus, the Legislature has now affirmatively told the Commission to price wholesale transmission services entirely by the postage stamp method previously used to set only the access fee. The parties agree that, following this change, the Commission has the authority to set rates for both investor-owned and municipally owned utilities using the postage stamp method. [95] The Commission argues that the 1999 amendments simply clarified the authority it already had, while HL & P argues that they bestowed an entirely new power. For our purposes, subsequent statutory amendments are of limited usefulness. We must be guided by what the law was in the relevant time period1995. And PURA95 was not ambiguous with respect to the powers it gave the Commission. The Commission also points out that, although the Legislature added the postage stamp provision, it did not change those provisions of the statute with which we have found the Commission's rules to be inconsistent. The Commission suggests that this means the Legislature did not think there was any inconsistency. But the Legislature can, and does, choose to amend a statute without reconciling all inconsistencies. In fact, the Legislature has offered instructions for interpreting apparently irreconcilable amendments. [96] And this case does not require us to interpret chapter 35 as it currently appears. Because we have determined that the access fee is inconsistent with the statute's command, we do not reach the further question of whether the rules are contrary to federal law. If, as the Commission argues, the access fee is consistent with orders from the FERC, that still cannot supply statutory authority that our own Legislature has not given. We express no opinion on the court of appeals' discussion of this point. Finally, the Commission argues that, even if the access fee portions of the rules are invalid, the court of appeals erred in striking Rule 23.67(m) because that rule does nothing more than articulate the statutory requirement that all utilities file tariffs. But in fact the rule mandates that tariffs shall comply with the provisions of this rule, many of which are invalid. Thus, because Rule 23.67(m) requires compliance with invalid portions of the rules, Rule 23.67(m) itself is invalid.