Supreme Court to hear case on power plant subsidies

The Supreme Court will hear a case about whether states have the right to subsidize new power plants.

The case is the second the court will hear this term about the limits of the power of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which oversees bulk electricity markets.

{mosads}Maryland is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a program it started to incentivize the construction of new natural gas-fired power plants.

PPL Corp., an electric utility company that runs existing plants that would not be eligible for incentives, convinced a lower court to block the program, under the argument that such issues are the exclusive domain of FERC and states cannot interfere.

Maryland instituted its program in 2012, following the lead of a similar project in New Jersey.

The high court only agreed to take the Maryland case Monday, but its decision is likely to affect New Jersey as well, whose program was blocked last year by the same appeals court that decided the Maryland case.

The Maryland dispute is actually two cases combined for the sake of arguments, Hughes v. PPL EnergyPlus and CPV Maryland v. PPL EnergyPlus.

The Obama administration urged the high court not to take the Maryland case, which would leave the lower court’s ruling in effect.

Just last week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in another FERC case. That one challenges a FERC program to require utilities to pay for customers to use less electricity during periods of high demand.