Commissioner Neil Chatterjee Statement
March 18, 2021
Docket No. IN19-4-000
Order: C-6
I join the majority in directing Rover Pipeline, LLC and Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. (jointly, Rover) to show cause as to why Rover should not be found to have violated the Commission’s Regulations by misleading the Commission in its Application for Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. Rover will now have an opportunity to respond, and the Commission will consider its pleadings and OE Staff’s reply as part of its further review of this proceeding.
However, I believe that the proposed civil penalties in the amount of $20,160,000, which were calculated with reference to the Commission’s Revised Policy Statement on Penalty Guidelines, would be excessive in this matter. When the Commission adopted those guidelines, it noted that “our decision to adopt a guidelines-based approach does not restrict the discretion that we have always exercised and will continue to exercise in order to make an individualized assessment based on the facts presented in a given case.”[1] The Commission’s penalty guidelines were developed largely on the basis of a record focused on market manipulation, tariff violations and electric reliability, and thus are an ill fit for the unique circumstances that arise in many if not most certificate cases. Rather than hammering a square peg into a round hole, I would support the Commission exercising its discretion to assess a right-sized penalty amount based on the unique facts of this case should Rover be found to have violated the Commission’s regulations.
For these reasons, I respectfully concur.
[1] Revised Policy Statement on Penalty Guidelines, 132 FERC ¶ 61,216, at P 19 (2010).