Entergy Louisiana, Inc. v. Louisiana Public Serv. Comm.
Entergy Louisiana, Inc. (“ELI”) filed suit in state court seeking a stay or injunctive relief with respect to portions of an order issued by the Louisiana Public Service Commission (“LPSC”) that prohibited ELI from including generating units that are in Extended Reserve Shutdown status in the calculation of reserve equalization payments under Service Schedule MSS-1 of the Entergy System Agreement. LPSC also ordered ELI to credit the overpayments back to its customers. The district court upheld the Order, finding that the LPSC’s findings were neither arbitrary nor capricious and that it had acted within its constitutional and statutory authority. ELI appealed directly to the Louisiana Supreme Court, which affirmed the district court, holding that LPSC is not precluded from assessing the prudence of ELI’s actions and that the LPSC’s ruling was not arbitrary, capricious or clearly erroneous.
Question Presented:
Whether Mississippi Power & Light v. Mississippi ex rel. Moore and Nantahala Power &
Light Co. v. Thornburg require a state public utility commission to allow an electric utility member of a multi-state power system to recover, in retail rates, the costs allocated to it by a
rate schedule of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC"), or whether the state commission has jurisdiction to decide that it was "imprudent" for such a utility to incur the costs
allocated to it under a FERC rate schedule, thereby "trapping" such wholesale costs?
