16 U.S.C. § 824d : US Code - Section 824D: Rates and charges; schedules; suspension of new rates; automatic adjustment clauses

Search 16 U.S.C. § 824d : US Code - Section 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.