In recent weeks, we’ve seen fossil fuel companies and their political enablers using the current pandemic as cover to get several legislatures to increase criminal penalties on some forms of anti-pipeline protest. Even as the rest of the economy remained in lockdown, we saw utilities push ahead with permitting and construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, despite the safety hazards for workers – and even though demand for gas and oil have dropped sharply.
Now comes fresh news of an effort in New England to strip away one of the major benefits of investing in solar energy. In April, a shadowy, New Hampshire-based group called the New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) filed a petition with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that, in the words of Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School, would “end net metering as we know it.” The petition asks FERC to assert sole federal jurisdiction over control over one of the key ways that states have encouraged private companies and residential customers to invest in renewable energy: by allowing them to sell energy they’re not using to their utility providers -- a practice called net metering.
There are three key things to know about this:
● As Peskoe has noted on Twitter, fossil fuel and utility interests have “been making this argument for at least 7 years. They cite no new case law. There is absolutely no reason to raise this issue now.” Except of course, for the fact that state governments are all pretty distracted at the moment.
● NERA says it “was established to give a larger voice for the families and businesses that are served by regulated utilities [in New England],” but its legal arguments and its high-powered Washington lawyers are exactly the same as the arguments and lawyers paid for by the big utilities and their lobbying front, the Edison Electrical Institute. That’s no coincidence.
● NERA is trying to rush this proposal through with unusual speed and FERC appears to be letting them. The standard process allows 30 days for opponents to file counter-arguments, but extensions are routine. The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the New England States Committee on Electricity (representing New England governors) and nine state attorneys general all asked for a 90-dayextension to the deadline for filing comments. NERA said 30 to 60 days would be “reasonable.” With no explanation, FERC only allowed a 30-day extension – to June 15th.
So, to sum up: the big utilities and fossil fuel companies are mounting an insidious and substantial effort to use the COVID-19 pandemic as cover for the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure, the intimidation of anti-fossil fuel protestors and, now, the elimination one of the best tools states have to encourage private investment in renewable energy..
Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's Energy Program says that "NERA is likely backed by very powerful, well-funded interests, and they are extremely smart and aggressive about their strategies."
As Joseph Heller famously observed, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn't mean they aren’t after you.”