[00:00:00] Speaker 00: Case number 24-11-16-4. [00:00:02] Speaker 00: A benefit monitored for PJM conditioner versus Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [00:00:09] Speaker 00: Mr. Mays for tradition. [00:00:11] Speaker 00: Mr. Perkins for the response. [00:00:13] Speaker 00: Mr. Mays, all party members. [00:00:15] Speaker 00: Good morning, Mr. Mays. [00:00:17] Speaker 06: Good morning. [00:00:18] Speaker 06: May it please the court? [00:00:19] Speaker 06: My name is Jeffrey Mays, counsel for the Independent Bucket Monitor for PJM. [00:00:25] Speaker 06: I requested two minutes of my time for rebuttal. [00:00:28] Speaker 06: Section 4G states, Section 4G of the tariff, the market monitoring unit may, as it deems appropriate or necessary to perform its functions under this plan, participate consistent with the rules applicable to all PGM stakeholders and stakeholder working groups, committees, or other PGM stakeholder processes. [00:00:50] Speaker 06: Section 4G is there to ensure that the market monitor can perform its core functions without interference. [00:00:57] Speaker 06: Section 4G recognizes that market participants could prevent the market monitor from providing its recommendations on market design by excluding it from stakeholder processes where market design proposals are developed. [00:01:10] Speaker 06: The market design rules are complicated and must reflect competitive principles as economists define them. [00:01:17] Speaker 04: Before you get too deep in the merits, can you talk for a little bit standing? [00:01:23] Speaker 06: Our standing is because there is a tariff provision law that protects the ability of the market monitor to perform a core function. [00:01:34] Speaker 06: And that core function requires it to participate in PGM stakeholder meetings like the Liaison Committee. [00:01:39] Speaker 06: And that provision was violated by denying the market monitor the ability to attend at [00:01:47] Speaker 06: the liaison committee and the fork did not enforce that rule when it was requested to on complaint. [00:01:54] Speaker 04: This is an informational injury theory or a theory that the organization was prevented from doing its job. [00:02:05] Speaker 06: The injury was a failure to enforce a provision of the law that protects it. [00:02:10] Speaker 06: I realized that in our briefing, we tie that theory to other cases. [00:02:16] Speaker 06: where volunteer organizations that have organizational activities and wanted information from the government on claim standing and were granted standing based on that theory. [00:02:28] Speaker 06: But that's not really our case. [00:02:29] Speaker 06: Our case is that there is provisional law that says that we get to pretend to attend these stakeholder meetings like liaison committee. [00:02:37] Speaker 06: And that provision was violated. [00:02:39] Speaker 06: And I don't think the court actually has to determine issues in the broader realm of standing about whether this is access to information or these other interests that came up in cases that were the case was far weaker in the sense that it wasn't a specific legal provision designed to protect that specific entity raising a complaint. [00:02:58] Speaker 05: What is the specific provision that you think you think gives [00:03:03] Speaker 06: the right to be at these [00:03:11] Speaker 06: The PJM tariff includes attachment M, which is basically the charter that outlines the functions and responsibilities of the market monitor. [00:03:20] Speaker 06: And the market monitor is not a discretionary entity. [00:03:23] Speaker 06: PJM is required to have a market monitor in order to be an RTO because FERC considered that important to have confidence that PJM-organized wholesale markets would create competitive prices that it could rely on as just and reasonable. [00:03:36] Speaker 05: But the market monitor exists only because the members decided to create that position, and they define what it involves and the definition. [00:03:47] Speaker 05: I'm not seeing a definition that includes decision-making or decision-making processes, which is what the agency and the other side say. [00:03:57] Speaker 05: Where do they have? [00:03:58] Speaker 05: Suppose there was a specific provision in the tariff that said they had no right to attend these meetings. [00:04:06] Speaker 06: If there was a provision that said the IMM did not have a right to pretend the meetings, we wouldn't be here to enforce it. [00:04:12] Speaker 05: Now, that's essentially what we're talking about because the other side and Ferg both say, when you read the terror, they do not have a right to participate in liaison committee meetings. [00:04:24] Speaker 05: They're not involved in the liaison committee, is not involved in decision-making. [00:04:29] Speaker 06: Right. [00:04:29] Speaker 06: Okay. [00:04:29] Speaker 06: So I think that Commissioner Christie actually addressed that. [00:04:35] Speaker 06: Commissioner Christie filed a dissent in the order that denied our complaint. [00:04:41] Speaker 06: Commissioner Christie is very familiar with PJM because he was very active and played a leadership role in the organization of PJM states. [00:04:51] Speaker 06: And so for many years, he's very familiar with PJM affairs. [00:04:54] Speaker 06: Until recently, he was actually the chair of the commission. [00:04:57] Speaker 06: And he wrote in dissent, the idea that the Liaison Committee does not identify or review any issues related to the PJM tariff or markets seems nonsensical to say in the lease. [00:05:10] Speaker 06: And would immediately, excuse me, would undoubtedly be a surprise to those members of the Liaison Committee who undoubtedly believe that they are addressing and identifying issues of consequence to the PJM tariff and markets to the PJM board. [00:05:24] Speaker 06: Moreover, it is contrary to the evidence presented by the IML. [00:05:28] Speaker 05: I'm not sure what that says. [00:05:29] Speaker 05: It doesn't say anything about the question I'm asking. [00:05:32] Speaker 05: That is, the liaison committee has no authority to deal with the stakeholder decision-making questions. [00:05:40] Speaker 05: And there's nothing to the contrary, nothing in what you just said is the contrary. [00:05:44] Speaker 05: And even if this fellow has been around forever and knows everybody everywhere, that doesn't mean he's an authority. [00:05:49] Speaker 05: And this question, you look at the tariff, the tariff does not give authority for the liaison, doesn't say anything about the liaison committee has the authority. [00:05:59] Speaker 05: or does engage in the decision-making process. [00:06:03] Speaker 05: So both the commission and the other side say they're not involved in a stakeholder interest that we're going to recognize as required under the tariff that gives them a right. [00:06:14] Speaker 05: Now, I mean, I realize you, and it's tricky in standing, I realize you can make an argument. [00:06:19] Speaker 05: Well, they can make the arguments not completely off the wall to suggest this protects [00:06:28] Speaker 05: an interest that is important to them, and so you shouldn't decide the merits when you're dealing with standing. [00:06:36] Speaker 05: That's one way to go. [00:06:37] Speaker 05: You can say, so they have standing to make that claim, and then we get to the merits and you lose anyway. [00:06:42] Speaker 05: So I'm not sure where you are in this. [00:06:44] Speaker 05: You're saying it's absolutely clear in standing because where? [00:06:48] Speaker 05: What? [00:06:48] Speaker 06: I think it's absolutely clear because regardless of what the committee is, this committee is, it's part of the pre-jump stakeholder process. [00:06:57] Speaker 06: Even the law decided by the other side recognizes that education and review and addition decisions are part of the process. [00:07:06] Speaker 06: Nowhere does it say that every single meeting has to be decisional. [00:07:11] Speaker 06: And in fact, many other examples of committees are not themselves decisional. [00:07:16] Speaker 06: One of them that's very important is the cost development subcommittee, which develops rules for offers and particularly in the energy markets. [00:07:24] Speaker 06: And that committee itself does not actually make decisions, but it's very influential. [00:07:29] Speaker 06: And what the ultimate market rules will be is critical offer market design. [00:07:34] Speaker 05: There's no doubt that there may be things that happen that cause people to think differently about decisions. [00:07:39] Speaker 05: That doesn't make it a decision-making group. [00:07:41] Speaker 06: that makes it part of the process. [00:07:43] Speaker 06: That makes it part of the stakeholder process. [00:07:45] Speaker 05: Not if the organization that's hired you said it's not part of the process. [00:07:49] Speaker 05: What's so ironic here is the market monitor has been created by these people and they're telling him no this is not the way that particular group operates and it's not the way we want it to operate and the law does not require it to operate in the way that the market monitor [00:08:08] Speaker 05: says gives them standing. [00:08:11] Speaker 06: Well, I think this goes straight to the problem, which is that there's excessive deference being paid to PJM here, which it's pretty clear from the record that PJM wasn't only making the decisions, it was making it at the behest of the members. [00:08:23] Speaker 06: That's the track record of how after 10 years of participating in liaison committees, the market monitor was suddenly excluded. [00:08:31] Speaker 05: Because the members decided they didn't want the arrangement and the law doesn't require it. [00:08:37] Speaker 05: It does require it. [00:08:38] Speaker 05: That's what Section 4G says. [00:08:40] Speaker 06: Section what? [00:08:40] Speaker 06: Section 4G requires it. [00:08:42] Speaker 06: Section 4G requires that the market monitor, which makes the determination of what's appropriate and necessary, may it participate in PGM stakeholder meetings, including committees, like the Liaison Committee, which is a committee because it's called the Liaison Committee. [00:08:58] Speaker 06: and that it gets to make that decision. [00:09:00] Speaker 06: And the reason it does that is because it was anticipated that exactly this attempt would be made to exclude the market monitor from committees and thereby prevent it from carrying out its role to recommend changes in the market design. [00:09:12] Speaker 06: And if you look at what the PJM board requires the market monitor to do, [00:09:16] Speaker 06: section 22 of the market monitoring service agreement, which is included in the addendum and which is part of the agreement, what the market must require to do by the PGM board. [00:09:26] Speaker 06: It says quite plainly there that they will evaluate our performance by how [00:09:31] Speaker 06: the quality and quantity of our efforts to make recommendations and influence the market design. [00:09:37] Speaker 06: And then it includes participation of the stakeholder process. [00:09:41] Speaker 06: So we're required by the board to do it. [00:09:43] Speaker 06: We're required by the PJM CAREF to do it. [00:09:45] Speaker 06: We are required by the FOX regulations to do it. [00:09:48] Speaker 06: We're required by order 2000 and order 719, which define the market function and require it to be part of all RTOs, not just PJM. [00:09:57] Speaker 06: And all of this, of course, emanates from section 205 of the Federal Power Act, which requires that the FERC determine that prices are just and reasonable. [00:10:06] Speaker 06: And if it's going to rely on the rules of these organized wholesale markets to determine just and reasonable prices, then it provided for the market monitor to be there in the process to develop those rules. [00:10:17] Speaker 06: And that's an essential part of what an RTL is. [00:10:20] Speaker 06: And the function is not voluntary. [00:10:22] Speaker 06: It is not at the discretion of PJM. [00:10:24] Speaker 06: It's not even at the discretion of the PJM board. [00:10:28] Speaker 01: All right. [00:10:31] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:10:32] Speaker 01: Mr. Perkins. [00:10:41] Speaker 03: Jason Perkins for the commission. [00:10:44] Speaker 03: I just want to start by taking a little bit of a step back on the standing point. [00:10:48] Speaker 03: As you see it from the first page of PJM's answer, page 42, the joint appendix, there are about 400 meetings a year that they consider to be part of the stakeholder process. [00:10:56] Speaker 03: The market monitor says that they attend 100 or more of those meetings. [00:11:00] Speaker 03: And here in this case, we're talking about four additional meetings beyond that. [00:11:04] Speaker 03: And so what we were [00:11:06] Speaker 03: hoping to see in the opening brief, in the declaration supporting it, is what exactly the four meetings matter to the overall perspective of what the Market Monitor does. [00:11:16] Speaker 03: And beyond stating that it would play defense against bad ideas in those meetings, essentially, we didn't see a whole lot more than that. [00:11:25] Speaker 03: So that's the basis of our standing concern. [00:11:27] Speaker 01: It seems there's a hint of paranoia with this IMM that [00:11:34] Speaker 01: You know, if it doesn't hear something, it can't respond to it. [00:11:39] Speaker 01: And it's got a million ways to get the information if it thinks that you've been denied some sort of information. [00:11:48] Speaker 03: robust informational tools as spelled out in the tariff to get all the information it might need. [00:11:53] Speaker 03: The problems here seems to be, at least from the record, that the set of meetings that are described in paragraph 86 of the commission's order, the fact that the PJM board has successive meetings with different groups that are not open to the other groups seems to be the basis of the concern here. [00:12:09] Speaker 03: But as the court noted, there's plenty of information, well, Washington information that PJM, the market monitor, can get. [00:12:15] Speaker 04: It's not that hard to imagine a bureaucratic arrangement, right, where there's a formal meeting where people go through motions and then there's a private informal meeting where the decision makers really decide what they're going to do. [00:12:34] Speaker 04: Sure. [00:12:35] Speaker 04: I mean, it didn't strike me as an off the wall concern. [00:12:42] Speaker 03: Input in those terms, if all of the negotiations happen behind closed doors and what happens in public is just the end vote of how it is actually formally approved, that's one thing. [00:12:52] Speaker 03: But here, as you saw in the chart in our brief, there's a robust process that happens when it comes to identifying specific tariff provision proposals, working them through the process and having votes. [00:13:02] Speaker 04: Yeah, and look that way on paper. [00:13:04] Speaker 04: But can you just give me the record sites for the 410 and 4? [00:13:09] Speaker 03: Sure. [00:13:09] Speaker 03: That is... [00:13:12] Speaker 03: Page 42 of the joint appendix, it is the first page of the PJM answer. [00:13:18] Speaker 03: And it says, in furtherance of the commitment to independence and transparency, PJM hosts more than 400 stakeholder meetings on an annual basis. [00:13:25] Speaker 03: And then in the addendum, the declaration that's towards the end of the Bowering Declaration, it talks about the, yes, period of 19. [00:13:39] Speaker 03: The monitors. [00:13:40] Speaker 03: That's right. [00:13:40] Speaker 03: That's right. [00:13:41] Speaker 03: Yeah. [00:13:41] Speaker 03: Today in 2024, the market monitors attended more than 100 stakeholder meetings. [00:13:49] Speaker 01: Do you have any explanation for the tenor of the descent? [00:13:53] Speaker 01: I thought it was, you know, an overreaction to a fairly small boar issue. [00:14:03] Speaker 03: Well, the [00:14:07] Speaker 03: Then Commissioner Christie, former chairman Christie, has had perspective on this. [00:14:12] Speaker 03: And I think the real key to it is at the end of the dissent, where it talks about paragraph 14 on Joint Appendix 115, that the market monitor is very important. [00:14:22] Speaker 03: It has explicit obligations. [00:14:24] Speaker 03: It's very important. [00:14:24] Speaker 03: It is very specific and vitally important duties. [00:14:27] Speaker 03: We feel strongly that the market monitor should have. [00:14:31] Speaker 01: You can do your own market monitoring. [00:14:33] Speaker 01: Do any of the RTOs do that? [00:14:36] Speaker 03: So the market monitoring function is a requirement of all the RTOs. [00:14:39] Speaker 03: So they all do it. [00:14:40] Speaker 03: They do it in slightly different structures in different ways. [00:14:42] Speaker 01: Does any RTO do it in-house? [00:14:46] Speaker 03: I think we're beyond our record. [00:14:48] Speaker 03: But I do believe some do it in-house. [00:14:50] Speaker 03: And maybe the California one does it in-house, I think. [00:14:53] Speaker 03: So it is possible to have it be done in-house or be done by an external consultant. [00:14:57] Speaker 03: And I think it's even possible to have both. [00:15:00] Speaker 03: So there are many different ways to get it done. [00:15:03] Speaker 05: A significant part of your argument, if I understood it correctly, was that the liaison committee does not have, does not engage in decision making. [00:15:12] Speaker 05: What is your strongest authority for that point? [00:15:14] Speaker 03: That would be the liaison committee charter that describes what the liaison committee does. [00:15:18] Speaker 03: And it says that the liaison committee on page [00:15:23] Speaker 03: One of the charters, the Joint Appendix 126, the PGA and Liaison Committee will not have the authority to vote on or decide any matters or to act as a substitute for the normal decision-making processes of the Members Committee or the Board of Managers. [00:15:36] Speaker 03: But they were acting decision-making, that's a violation of their own charter. [00:15:45] Speaker 04: But they are meeting with the Board, who is the decision-maker, right? [00:15:51] Speaker 04: Right as to and I think it's mentioned in the declaration as and stuff on the agenda can include market design issues. [00:16:01] Speaker 03: Right. [00:16:02] Speaker 03: And there are two meeting agendas that were linked in that answer. [00:16:07] Speaker 03: It's to an appendix forty seven where they're linked and they talk through big picture issues like the capacity option results, the winter storm, transparency and resource adequacy. [00:16:20] Speaker 03: and the market monitors contract. [00:16:21] Speaker 03: So those are all big picture items at PJM. [00:16:24] Speaker 03: The membership at last check, the PJM website said it was more than 500 voting members, 1,100 total members. [00:16:33] Speaker 03: It's a large group for sure. [00:16:36] Speaker 03: But this is the opportunity for the membership to have their comments and their feedback face-to-face with the board. [00:16:42] Speaker 04: And that's, as the commission describes in detail in the orders, that's a- It looks like that could be part of a decision-making process. [00:16:50] Speaker 04: Part of my decision-making process is I have meetings with my law clerks for argument. [00:16:58] Speaker 04: They have no authority to decide cases, but that meeting is part of my process. [00:17:04] Speaker 03: Sure, and if the PJM board thinks about what was discussed in the meeting, it's in their mind, we don't dispute that. [00:17:11] Speaker 03: I think where our dispute as to the merits issue, as we talked about on page 30 of our brief, is that the market monitor appears to believe that any discussion of issues therefore belongs in the stakeholder process. [00:17:22] Speaker 03: And so no discussion of issues can happen outside of the market monitor's purview. [00:17:26] Speaker 03: And I think that's where we depart on the merits because discussion of those high-level issues, if they're not tied to a specific decision PJM is going to make, [00:17:34] Speaker 03: is something that can happen as a function of two-way communication between the members and the board they elect. [00:17:42] Speaker 03: So we don't seem to see a problem there. [00:17:44] Speaker 05: So you're distinguishing between affecting decision-making and actually deciding. [00:17:50] Speaker 05: In other words, three law clerks, four law clerks in the chambers may or may not affect the judge's decision. [00:17:56] Speaker 05: But the one thing we know is they can't make the decision. [00:17:59] Speaker 03: That's right. [00:17:59] Speaker 03: That's essentially, yes, that there can be a discussion of the capacity market auction between the members and the board. [00:18:07] Speaker 03: But if they are trying to change the rules of the auction to affect it in future years, that needs to work up through the public transparent process of stakeholder process. [00:18:20] Speaker 05: Why isn't, why don't they have [00:18:24] Speaker 05: enough to get them past the standing position on the plan and the tariff says that the market monitor unit may, as it deems appropriate, necessary to perform its functions, participate consistent with the rules applicable to all PJM stakeholders and stakeholder working groups, committees, or other PJM stakeholder processes. [00:18:49] Speaker 05: They're reading that sweepingly. [00:18:52] Speaker 05: They're saying anything that looks interesting and where you might hear some juicy stuff, we can be there. [00:18:58] Speaker 05: At least that's essentially the way I read their position. [00:19:02] Speaker 05: If it might bear some fruit, if they might affect decision making, then we should be able to be there. [00:19:08] Speaker 03: Well, I think that for purposes of standing, we would assume that they're right about the merits and the formulation of standing. [00:19:14] Speaker 05: Let's talk about standing now, because you're not supposed to decide the merits in the standing inquiry. [00:19:20] Speaker 03: Exactly. [00:19:21] Speaker 03: The formulation being there needs to be an actual or imminent invasion of a legally protected concrete and particularized interest. [00:19:28] Speaker 03: So legally protected, that would be the merits question. [00:19:30] Speaker 03: So we assume that they're right about that. [00:19:32] Speaker 03: Particularized, it deals with the market monitor. [00:19:35] Speaker 03: So this provision is specific to the market monitor. [00:19:37] Speaker 03: So we can see that that's particularized. [00:19:39] Speaker 03: But where is concrete in that? [00:19:40] Speaker 03: What does it matter if they're not there? [00:19:43] Speaker 03: If they were excluded in 2018? [00:19:45] Speaker 03: I'm sorry. [00:19:45] Speaker 04: I mean, it is a concrete injury if you assume they have preserved an informational injury claim. [00:19:57] Speaker 04: They claim a right to information under the tariff. [00:20:01] Speaker 04: And we assume that that's right. [00:20:05] Speaker 04: And the tariff has legal effect. [00:20:09] Speaker 04: And under the informational standing cases, [00:20:15] Speaker 04: the terrorist makes that claim concrete, the injury concrete. [00:20:20] Speaker 04: If there's a perceptible impairment to their activities, and you look at the Center for Biological Diversity... Well, then you're kind of shifting from informational injury to havens. [00:20:32] Speaker 03: I agree with you with that. [00:20:33] Speaker 03: Well, I think that's their claim, though, right? [00:20:36] Speaker 03: They are, I mean, citing the PETA case, the anti-vibisection society case, that seems to be the claim. [00:20:41] Speaker 04: The most charitable reading of their brief is they have two separate theories. [00:20:48] Speaker 04: One is that one and the other, which may or may not be preserved, is just a pure informational injury. [00:20:56] Speaker 04: It's just like a FOIA plaintiff. [00:20:58] Speaker 04: I say I have a right to get some information and I haven't gotten it. [00:21:04] Speaker 03: And in those cases, if you look at the Akins case, the public citizen case, there is still some sort of interest identified by the plaintiff there, be it in voting, be it in the participation in judicial selection. [00:21:19] Speaker 03: There is something else that can be identified as being potentially impaired. [00:21:23] Speaker 03: So I think you still have perceptible impairment in those cases. [00:21:26] Speaker 03: And the trans union case gets right to it by saying that, [00:21:30] Speaker 03: an asserted informational injury that causes new adverse effects cannot satisfy Article III. [00:21:34] Speaker 03: So that's the 594 U.S. [00:21:36] Speaker 03: of 442. [00:21:38] Speaker 03: Like that seems to be the standard that would need to be satisfied, adverse effects. [00:21:43] Speaker 03: We don't really see it here and that's our concern. [00:21:45] Speaker 01: And isn't there a provision at 5B1-2 that gives IMM the right to force disclosure? [00:21:57] Speaker 01: And why can't we compare that [00:22:00] Speaker 01: as a provision requiring the information be given to 4G, which doesn't have any requirement language. [00:22:16] Speaker 03: It's requesting other information in additional request for additional data on page 21. [00:22:23] Speaker 03: If the market unit determines additional information is required. [00:22:26] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:22:27] Speaker 03: So, right. [00:22:28] Speaker 03: There are reasonable requests of the entities possessing such information. [00:22:31] Speaker 03: I think that that is in general a possibility for getting information. [00:22:36] Speaker 03: That's pretty, pretty broad. [00:22:38] Speaker 03: I don't know how. [00:22:39] Speaker 03: I don't know if that's been invoked or how it would be treated, but that is an opportunity to ask for anything that they feel like that they need. [00:22:45] Speaker 01: But what I'm saying is that shows you an informational injury. [00:22:51] Speaker 01: That doesn't. [00:22:53] Speaker 03: I see. [00:22:54] Speaker 03: That's already been established here or that they could ask for the information? [00:22:59] Speaker 01: Well, they can ask for it, but they're not entitled to us. [00:23:02] Speaker 01: Sure, sure. [00:23:04] Speaker 01: And they need to be to have an injury that we can recognize. [00:23:12] Speaker 03: Any further questions? [00:23:13] Speaker 01: Thank you for your time. [00:23:28] Speaker 02: Good morning, may it please the court. [00:23:29] Speaker 02: My name is Stephen. [00:23:30] Speaker 02: I'm with electric utilities on behalf of the intervening transmission owners. [00:23:35] Speaker 02: So we are a member of and we have been for a long time and we participate both in the liaison committee and in the broader stakeholder process. [00:23:43] Speaker 02: So there's no doubt in this case that the has the right to access stakeholder process meetings and. [00:23:50] Speaker 02: process when and where market rules are developed. [00:23:53] Speaker 02: That's not an issue. [00:23:55] Speaker 02: What is an issue is whether this liaison committee is part of that process, and it's simply not. [00:24:00] Speaker 02: What it is is a meeting between the PJM board, separate decision making process, and the PJM membership where they have the opportunity and the space to discuss information and transparency. [00:24:14] Speaker 02: That's all right in there in manual 34. [00:24:17] Speaker 02: Section 15 describes what the liaison committee is. [00:24:20] Speaker 02: You also have to look, of course, to the Liaison Committee Charter, which explicitly excludes non-members of PJM from the meeting. [00:24:26] Speaker 02: So not just the market monitor, but also the state commissions, also the press, also the commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [00:24:33] Speaker 04: When the liaison committee is meeting with the board, they're only discussing issues of [00:24:45] Speaker 04: communication. [00:24:46] Speaker 04: They're not actually discussing proposals on market design. [00:24:53] Speaker 02: No, Judge Katz, they can discuss anything that's on the agenda, which would include market design. [00:24:59] Speaker 05: They certainly are involved in matters that may affect decisions by those who make decisions. [00:25:06] Speaker 05: That can't be disputed. [00:25:07] Speaker 02: No, that's not disputed, Judge. [00:25:10] Speaker 02: The difference is we have two decision-making bodies here. [00:25:12] Speaker 02: We have the stakeholder process that culminates in the members committee, and it's adequately described in manual 34. [00:25:18] Speaker 02: And we have the PJM board. [00:25:20] Speaker 02: And they have overlapping but distinct roles. [00:25:22] Speaker 02: So the liaison committee is primarily designed as a liaison, literally in the name, between those two bodies. [00:25:29] Speaker 02: between the members on the one hand and the PGM board on the other. [00:25:33] Speaker 05: And the end result of the liaison committee cannot ever be a decision that controls those other two that you reference. [00:25:40] Speaker 02: Exactly. [00:25:40] Speaker 02: Frankly, there is no end result. [00:25:42] Speaker 05: That's the heart of your argument. [00:25:44] Speaker 05: I don't know where that puts me. [00:25:45] Speaker 05: It's standing. [00:25:45] Speaker 05: But in terms of the merits, that's a strong position. [00:25:49] Speaker 05: The liaison committee is not involved. [00:25:52] Speaker 05: decision-making and that seems clear and I don't know how a market monitor can claim more than what it was created to do. [00:26:01] Speaker 05: There's no doubt that they may hear some things that are of interest to them if they were allowed to sit in the committee. [00:26:08] Speaker 05: That's fine because you hear things that you know may later affect the decisions of the board and [00:26:14] Speaker 05: of the stakeholders. [00:26:16] Speaker 05: But I don't know how that gets them to a position that therefore gives us a right to sit in all those committees and meetings. [00:26:24] Speaker 02: That's exactly right, Judge Edwards. [00:26:26] Speaker 02: They're also not entitled to participate in the other closed meetings of the board. [00:26:30] Speaker 02: The board has the opportunity to collect information from a variety of parties. [00:26:34] Speaker 02: Then it retreats to its own confidentiality and has a decision-making process. [00:26:37] Speaker 04: What's the point of the liaison committee meetings? [00:26:42] Speaker 04: Unless they are in some broad sense related to the decision making process through which the board. [00:26:51] Speaker 04: does its business. [00:26:52] Speaker 04: I mean, it's not a debating society. [00:26:55] Speaker 04: It's not a social club. [00:26:57] Speaker 04: It's related to the board's official duties. [00:27:00] Speaker 02: And in a lot of ways, it is a debating society. [00:27:03] Speaker 02: But you're right. [00:27:04] Speaker 02: The decision making process of both the membership and the board is very much on the table at the Liaison Committee. [00:27:10] Speaker 02: You can get that from any of the published agendas. [00:27:13] Speaker 02: However, there are other things discussed as well. [00:27:16] Speaker 02: PJM is an organization with its own private contracting, with its own governance, with its own management. [00:27:22] Speaker 02: All of that is available for discussion. [00:27:24] Speaker 02: The board is elected by the membership. [00:27:26] Speaker 02: The liaison committee meeting is an opportunity for them to receive feedback and frankly opinion from their membership. [00:27:32] Speaker 05: Because you have disparate parts who don't want to be left out. [00:27:36] Speaker 05: This is what you can bring them together in this room under the heading of liaison committee and they can yell at each other and make their points and leave feeling like I had my say. [00:27:45] Speaker 02: Exactly. [00:27:45] Speaker 02: And the other interested parties have [00:27:48] Speaker 02: their opportunity as well. [00:27:50] Speaker 02: If you do read former Chairman Christie's dissent, he had a strong opinion about OPC, which is the state commissions. [00:27:58] Speaker 02: They have a private meeting with the board. [00:28:00] Speaker 02: Market Monitor has a private meeting with the board. [00:28:02] Speaker 02: The board obviously meets amongst themselves, meets with PJM staff. [00:28:07] Speaker 02: Members aren't included in any of that. [00:28:08] Speaker 02: We want our own meeting where we can speak frankly as well. [00:28:15] Speaker 01: To see if any time that I take 1 minute. [00:28:24] Speaker 06: All right, so to address some of the points that were made about alternatives, there is no alternative to being at the meeting and hearing what said. [00:28:32] Speaker 06: It's not about so much about us receiving information as our ability to provide our information. [00:28:37] Speaker 06: We have a reporting function where we report details about how the PGM market operates. [00:28:43] Speaker 06: These are often referred to in stakeholder meetings, sometimes incorrectly, and to support points they don't support. [00:28:49] Speaker 06: And so when the market monitor is present, we are able to explain that. [00:28:53] Speaker 06: But the information flow and market design is about our recommendations on what the market design should be. [00:28:58] Speaker 06: The idea that the liaison committee would meet and discuss market design issues, which no one here has said really is otherwise, and that then when it goes and meets separately as a board to make a decision that it would not be impacted by what the liaison committee is, as Christy said, nonsensical to say the least, [00:29:18] Speaker 06: That is not what is happening. [00:29:20] Speaker 06: It is part of the decision process, just because the board doesn't give its decision at the liaison committee meeting doesn't mean that liaison committee does not contribute to the decision. [00:29:31] Speaker 06: I mean, if you consider in this proceeding, we're having oral arguments, but you're not going to decide this case here. [00:29:37] Speaker 06: I believe this is part of your decision-making process. [00:29:40] Speaker 06: But when you go meet, we're not going to be there. [00:29:42] Speaker 06: We wouldn't assert the right to be there. [00:29:44] Speaker 06: But we believe that oral argument and our pleadings that those would be part of the decision-making process, it's no different. [00:29:52] Speaker 06: When the liaison committee meets, discuss market design issues, and then the board goes off and votes on things. [00:29:58] Speaker 06: But why is that important, particularly for the board? [00:30:00] Speaker 06: Why is this, of all the hundreds of meetings, why is this the meeting that they want to exclude the market owner from? [00:30:06] Speaker 01: Why is this a meeting you want to attend? [00:30:09] Speaker 01: You're out of time, so no more questions. [00:30:13] Speaker 01: No. [00:30:14] Speaker 01: Okay, you're out of time.