§ 824d. — Rates and charges; schedules; suspension of new rates; automatic adjustment clauses.
[Laws in effect as of January 24, 2002]
[Document not affected by Public Laws enacted between
January 24, 2002 and December 19, 2002]
[CITE: 16USC824d]
TITLE 16--CONSERVATION
CHAPTER 12--FEDERAL REGULATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF POWER
SUBCHAPTER II--REGULATION OF ELECTRIC UTILITY COMPANIES ENGAGED IN
INTERSTATE COMMERCE
Sec. 824d. Rates and charges; schedules; suspension of new
rates; automatic adjustment clauses
(a) Just and reasonable rates
All rates and charges made, demanded, or received by any public
utility for or in connection with the transmission or sale of electric
energy subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, and all rules and
regulations affecting or pertaining to such rates or charges shall be
just and reasonable, and any such rate or charge that is not just and
reasonable is hereby declared to be unlawful.
(b) Preference or advantage unlawful
No public utility shall, with respect to any transmission or sale
subject to the jurisdiction of the Commission, (1) make or grant any
undue preference or advantage to any person or subject any person to any
undue prejudice or disadvantage, or (2) maintain any unreasonable
difference in rates, charges, service, facilities, or in any other
respect, either as between localities or as between classes of service.
(c) Schedules
Under such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe,
every public utility shall file with the Commission, within such time
and in such form as the Commission may designate, and shall keep open in
convenient form and place for public inspection schedules showing all
rates and charges for any transmission or sale subject to the
jurisdiction of the Commission, and the classifications, practices, and
regulations affecting such rates and charges, together with all
contracts which in any manner affect or relate to such rates, charges,
classifications, and services.
(d) Notice required for rate changes
Unless the Commission otherwise orders, no change shall be made by
any public utility in any such rate, charge, classification, or service,
or in any rule, regulation, or contract relating thereto, except after
sixty days' notice to the Commission and to the public. Such notice
shall be given by filing with the Commission and keeping open for public
inspection new schedules stating plainly the change or changes to be
made in the schedule or schedules then in force and the time when the
change or changes will go into effect. The Commission, for good cause
shown, may allow changes to take effect without requiring the sixty
days' notice herein provided for by an order specifying the changes so
to be made and the time when they shall take effect and the manner in
which they shall be filed and published.
(e) Suspension of new rates; hearings; five-month period
Whenever any such new schedule is filed the Commission shall have
authority, either upon complaint or upon its own initiative without
complaint, at once, and, if it so orders, without answer or formal
pleading by the public utility, but upon reasonable notice, to enter
upon a hearing concerning the lawfulness of such rate, charge,
classification, or service; and, pending such hearing and the decision
thereon, the Commission, upon filing with such schedules and delivering
to the public utility affected thereby a statement in writing of its
reasons for such suspension, may suspend the operation of such schedule
and defer the use of such rate, charge, classification, or service, but
not for a longer period than five months beyond the time when it would
otherwise go into effect; and after full hearings, either completed
before or after the rate, charge, classification, or service goes into
effect, the Commission may make such orders with reference thereto as
would be proper in a proceeding initiated after it had become effective.
If the proceeding has not been concluded and an order made at the
expiration of such five months, the proposed change of rate, charge,
classification, or service shall go into effect at the end of such
period, but in case of a proposed increased rate or charge, the
Commission may by order require the interested public utility or public
utilities to keep accurate account in detail of all amounts received by
reason of such increase, specifying by whom and in whose behalf such
amounts are paid, and upon completion of the hearing and decision may by
further order require such public utility or public utilities to refund,
with interest, to the persons in whose behalf such amounts were paid,
such portion of such increased rates or charges as by its decision shall
be found not justified. At any hearing involving a rate or charge sought
to be increased, the burden of proof to show that the increased rate or
charge is just and reasonable shall be upon the public utility, and the
Commission shall give to the hearing and decision of such questions
preference over other questions pending before it and decide the same as
speedily as possible.
(f) Review of automatic adjustment clauses and public utility practices;
action by Commission; ``automatic adjustment clause'' defined
(1) Not later than 2 years after November 9, 1978, and not less
often than every 4 years thereafter, the Commission shall make a
thorough review of automatic adjustment clauses in public utility rate
schedules to examine--
(A) whether or not each such clause effectively provides
incentives for efficient use of resources (including economical
purchase and use of fuel and electric energy), and
(B) whether any such clause reflects any costs other than costs
which are--
(i) subject to periodic fluctuations and
(ii) not susceptible to precise determinations in rate cases
prior to the time such costs are incurred.
Such review may take place in individual rate proceedings or in generic
or other separate proceedings applicable to one or more utilities.
(2) Not less frequently than every 2 years, in rate proceedings or
in generic or other separate proceedings, the Commission shall review,
with respect to each public utility, practices under any automatic
adjustment clauses of such utility to insure efficient use of resources
(including economical purchase and use of fuel and electric energy)
under such clauses.
(3) The Commission may, on its own motion or upon complaint, after
an opportunity for an evidentiary hearing, order a public utility to--
(A) modify the terms and provisions of any automatic adjustment
clause, or
(B) cease any practice in connection with the clause,
if such clause or practice does not result in the economical purchase
and use of fuel, electric energy, or other items, the cost of which is
included in any rate schedule under an automatic adjustment clause.
(4) As used in this subsection, the term ``automatic adjustment
clause'' means a provision of a rate schedule which provides for
increases or decreases (or both), without prior hearing, in rates
reflecting increases or decreases (or both) in costs incurred by an
electric utility. Such term does not include any rate which takes effect
subject to refund and subject to a later determination of the
appropriate amount of such rate.
(June 10, 1920, ch. 285, pt. II, Sec. 205, as added Aug. 26, 1935, ch.
687, title II, Sec. 213, 49 Stat. 851; amended Pub. L. 95-617, title II,
Secs. 207(a), 208, Nov. 9, 1978, 92 Stat. 3142.)
Amendments
1978--Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 95-617, Sec. 207(a), substituted
``sixty'' for ``thirty'' in two places.
Subsec. (f). Pub. L. 95-617, Sec. 208, added subsec. (f).
Transfer of Functions
Federal Power Commission terminated and its functions with regard to
establishment, review, and enforcement of rates and charges for
transmission or sale of electric energy, including determinations on
construction work in progress under this subchapter transferred to
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by sections 7172(a)(1)(B) and 7293
of Title 42, The Public Health and Welfare.
Executive and administrative functions of Federal Power Commission,
with certain reservations, transferred to Chairman of such Commission,
with authority vested in him to authorize their performance by any
officer, employee, or administrative unit under his jurisdiction, by
Reorg. Plan No. 9 of 1950, Secs. 1, 2, eff. May 24, 1950, 15 F.R. 3175,
64 Stat. 1265, set out as a note under section 792 of this title.
Study of Electric Rate Increases Under Federal Power Act
Section 207(b) of Pub. L. 95-617 directed chairman of Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, in consultation with Secretary, to conduct a
study of legal requirements and administrative procedures involved in
consideration and resolution of proposed wholesale electric rate
increases under Federal Power Act, section 791a et seq. of this title,
for purposes of providing for expeditious handling of hearings
consistent with due process, preventing imposition of successive rate
increases before they have been determined by Commission to be just and
reasonable and otherwise lawful, and improving procedures designed to
prohibit anticompetitive or unreasonable differences in wholesale and
retail rates, or both, and that chairman report to Congress within nine
months from Nov. 9, 1978, on results of study, on administrative actions
taken as a result of this study, and on any recommendations for changes
in existing law that will aid purposes of this section.
Section Referred to in Other Sections
This section is referred to in sections 808, 824e, 824m of this
title; title 15 section 79z-5a; title 42 section 13234.
