Lower Court Holding
Decision of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
Following two notices of proposed rulemaking, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] issued Orders 888 and 889 on April 24, 1996. Reflecting the commission’s effort to end discriminatory and anticompetitive practices in the national electricity market and to ensure that electricity customers pay the lowest prices possible, these orders represent, as the commission described in a later order not before us, "the foundation necessary to develop competitive bulk power markets." Open access is the essence of Orders 888 and 889. Under these orders, utilities must now provide access to their transmission lines to anyone purchasing or selling electricity in the…
