[00:00:00] Speaker 00: Case number 25-1086 et al. [00:00:03] Speaker 00: Municipal Energy Agency of Nebraska et al. [00:00:06] Speaker 00: Petitioners versus Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [00:00:10] Speaker 00: Ms. [00:00:10] Speaker 00: Whipple for the petitioners, Mr. Backfield for the respondents, Mr. Gates for the interviewees. [00:00:15] Speaker 06: Good morning, Council. [00:00:18] Speaker 06: Ms. [00:00:18] Speaker 06: Whipple, please proceed when you're ready. [00:00:20] Speaker 01: May I please the court? [00:00:22] Speaker 01: Thank you, your honor. [00:00:23] Speaker 01: I am Peggy Whipple. [00:00:24] Speaker 01: I'm here for the petitioners today. [00:00:26] Speaker 01: I'll collectively refer to them as the Colorado cities. [00:00:30] Speaker 01: And I have, if allowed, I'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:36] Speaker 01: This appeal is about FERC's failure to do what it said in its own two orders has been its job to do for the past 45 years to ensure just and reasonable rolled in electric transmission rates. [00:00:52] Speaker 01: First, to find whether the Power Pathway, the facility at issue, operates within Piesco, that's an acronym, Public Service Commission Company of Colorado, operates within Piesco's system as an integrated whole. [00:01:08] Speaker 01: And second, to find whether Colorado City's evidence of special circumstances rendered rolled in rate treatment to them of the Power Pathway costs inappropriate. [00:01:23] Speaker 01: Now, the court's failure to make those two findings, I will call that their primary failure. [00:01:32] Speaker 01: Whether or not FERC chose to make those findings by employing its 24-year precedent of the Mansfield five factor test is truly secondary to FERC's primary failure of failing to make those two findings at all. [00:01:51] Speaker 01: Arguably, FERC could have employed a different or even a new test to make those two findings so long as it provided a reasonable explanation for departing from its own precedent. [00:02:04] Speaker 04: Now you, you have a, we have a jurisdictional question here because as I read the record, you did not raise at the petition for rehearing the agency the question. [00:02:15] Speaker 04: regarding the alleged failure to address the integrated network. [00:02:21] Speaker 04: It's not there. [00:02:23] Speaker 01: What you have, Your Honor, is you have [00:02:27] Speaker 01: If I may call it the umbrella term, the label of rolled in rate treatment. [00:02:33] Speaker 01: And both the FERC cited that standard itself. [00:02:38] Speaker 01: It said for rolled in rate treatment, I have to make these two findings. [00:02:42] Speaker 01: And you do have in our request for rehearing, as well as our complaint below, [00:02:47] Speaker 01: the claimed error that FERC failed to follow its own precedent for rolled in rate treatment. [00:02:54] Speaker 01: That is at Joint Appendix 477 in the request for rehearing. [00:02:59] Speaker 01: And in FERC's November 2024 order, it found at Joint Appendix 438 that it acknowledged that the Colorado cities had pled special circumstances as the exception to rolled in rate treatment. [00:03:16] Speaker 04: Your honor, if I might. [00:03:17] Speaker 04: You're really stretching it there. [00:03:19] Speaker 04: I mean, the claim that I'm referring to, I think it's a very specific claim, if it was made, that Ferg did not make the finding. [00:03:29] Speaker 04: that this is part of an integrated network, you have to raise that in the petition for rehearing. [00:03:34] Speaker 04: That claim was not raised. [00:03:35] Speaker 04: Now, what you're doing is what I expected you would do to say, well, there's kind of a big sweep we had, and you have to assume that must have been there. [00:03:43] Speaker 04: But that's not the way we operate. [00:03:45] Speaker 04: It wasn't there. [00:03:45] Speaker 04: There were other claims that were preserved. [00:03:48] Speaker 04: This one was not. [00:03:50] Speaker 01: Your honor, I would say that because both of FERC's orders, both the November 2024 order and the March 25 order, because both of those orders spelled out in FERC's own language for rolled in rate treatment, I must make two findings. [00:04:08] Speaker 01: Integrated whole and special circumstances render the rolled in rate treatment inappropriate. [00:04:15] Speaker 01: I would argue that FERC laid out its own obligation, and surely we can assume that FERC was aware of the content of its orders. [00:04:25] Speaker 04: No, when you get to the rehearing, I'm sorry. [00:04:27] Speaker 01: No, please. [00:04:28] Speaker 04: Let me just finish. [00:04:29] Speaker 04: When you get to rehearing, you have to say they haven't done what even they understand they should have done. [00:04:35] Speaker 04: That you didn't do. [00:04:36] Speaker 04: And if you don't do that at the rehearing stage, that's jurisdictional. [00:04:41] Speaker 04: That's not before us. [00:04:42] Speaker 04: There are other things you've raised that we properly have to address. [00:04:47] Speaker 04: But you didn't raise that, and I looked at the record very carefully. [00:04:50] Speaker 04: I don't see it. [00:04:51] Speaker 01: I absolutely believe you looked at the record very carefully and I have to take the position that because FERC spelled it out in both of its orders and because everybody, FERC and the parties, refer to it as rolled in rate treatment, it includes those two findings. [00:05:09] Speaker 01: Perhaps an analogy, if we argue that due process has been denied, [00:05:15] Speaker 01: We all know we're talking about the Fifth Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment, but I'm not sure that it would be necessary to cite both the Fifteenth and the Fourth Amendment and also spell out what a particular court does in order to assure adequate notice and opportunity to be heard. [00:05:34] Speaker 06: I think part of the idea here is that the agency needs to understand what the error is, what the alleged error is, so that they can have a chance [00:05:42] Speaker 06: to speak to it in their hearing order. [00:05:45] Speaker 06: And if there's no objection that's levied at the level of specificity that would put the agency on notice, hey, here's the failing, and here's our answer to it, or here's a failing, oh, boy, we just messed up, then it's not properly preserved for our purposes because the agency wasn't put on notice that this is the nature of the objection that's being made. [00:06:05] Speaker 06: So even if the agency has some languages in its orders that circle around [00:06:10] Speaker 06: the general area of what you're seeking to raise before us now, they need to have been told in a petition for rehearing that here's the error that we see and here's your chance to address it. [00:06:22] Speaker 01: I understand and accept the court's concern and I have to say that because the agency so specifically described its duty to make the two findings and because the agency surely read its orders before it signed them and issued them, [00:06:41] Speaker 01: It seems to me to be certainly an unfair requirement that you've got to tell the agency, oh, by the way, even though you laid out your own duties and I believe you know what your order said, you didn't do it, please try again. [00:07:00] Speaker 01: I mean, I think that's what this court is for. [00:07:03] Speaker 01: is to send it back. [00:07:05] Speaker 04: We've already we've already ruled on the point. [00:07:08] Speaker 04: The case law here is exactly what the chief just said. [00:07:11] Speaker 04: The agency has to be given notice at the rehearing stage. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: You can't count what you think happened before that. [00:07:19] Speaker 04: At the rehearing stage, you have to say to them, no, no, no, you missed the boat on point X and we're challenging you now. [00:07:27] Speaker 04: And that's going to go up to the court of appeals. [00:07:29] Speaker 04: If you don't address it on rehearing, you must do it. [00:07:31] Speaker 04: And I was surprised our case law is very strong in this one with this agency. [00:07:35] Speaker 04: It has to be done. [00:07:38] Speaker 01: Very well. [00:07:41] Speaker 01: Well, in this case then, what we'll end up with, if that is true, what we'll end up with is a very muddied precedent for not just these parties. [00:07:51] Speaker 04: I think there are a lot of advocates who say that about a lot of the case law. [00:07:57] Speaker 01: But here is an opportunity to make it clean and clear. [00:08:02] Speaker 04: Why don't you give us your arguments on the points that you did preserve, at least as I'm describing it? [00:08:07] Speaker 01: Well, very well. [00:08:08] Speaker 01: The FERC did not, it did not rule on the special circumstances. [00:08:18] Speaker 01: And that is, of course, the second prong. [00:08:23] Speaker 01: But the court acknowledged itself that it had been pled, that the Colorado cities had pled special circumstances that rendered rolled-in rate treatment inappropriate. [00:08:36] Speaker 01: And the FERC then actually failed to make any finding of special circumstances. [00:08:44] Speaker 01: And we're actually, I think, assisted, if you will, by Excel's briefs, pages 22 to 29 of its brief. [00:08:54] Speaker 01: Excel went to the work to come through the record to find what elements in the record might have satisfied [00:09:05] Speaker 01: either of those prongs, both the integrated whole and the special circumstances, but we get nothing from that. [00:09:16] Speaker 05: So, counsel, there's some ambiguity about what special circumstances means. [00:09:20] Speaker 05: Yes. [00:09:20] Speaker 05: But in your brief on appeal, at least one way of viewing it is special circumstances means showing that you'll receive no benefit [00:09:29] Speaker 05: from the upgrade. [00:09:30] Speaker 05: Is that a fair description? [00:09:33] Speaker 01: That would be a special circumstance. [00:09:35] Speaker 01: Yes, of course. [00:09:37] Speaker 05: And so assume your primary argument below was that you would receive no benefit and that FERC explained in its orders, especially the rehearing order, that there is at least some benefit, reliability and resilience, among other things. [00:09:53] Speaker 05: Why isn't that effectively a finding that special circumstances don't exist [00:09:59] Speaker 05: Conceding they didn't use those exact words. [00:10:02] Speaker 01: I think the primary reason that that was insufficient from the first ruling is they never did find that there were particular benefits to the Colorado cities or frankly even particular benefits to anyone on the west side of the mountains. [00:10:19] Speaker 01: Remember, FERC acknowledged that the Excel, their subsidiary, Piesco, had declared the Power Pathway project to be for the benefit of its customers in Denver and on the east side of the mountains. [00:10:34] Speaker 01: And FERC actually made those two findings as well. [00:10:37] Speaker 01: And all FERC did find is that [00:10:41] Speaker 01: There are generalized benefits to all of Pisco's customers of reliability and adaptability and that sort of thing and did not address really Colorado City's three special circumstances. [00:10:57] Speaker 01: Number one being we're clear over on the west side of the mountains and you've already acknowledged that this entire project is for the benefit on the east side of the mountains. [00:11:06] Speaker 01: Number two being, we are not connected to you. [00:11:11] Speaker 01: You have acknowledged that we take all our power from low voltage lines, not this high voltage line. [00:11:18] Speaker 01: And number three being, how can 114% increase in our rates over basically two years of time for no showing of benefits, how can that be cost commensurate with the burden? [00:11:34] Speaker 01: And FERC made no findings in that regard. [00:11:39] Speaker 01: It simply did not. [00:11:41] Speaker 04: They said they were economic benefits, reduce production costs, reduce reserve requirements in addition to reliability, which you have mentioned, and resilience benefits. [00:11:54] Speaker 04: So it's more than what you just said. [00:11:56] Speaker 01: That was for all of PSCO's customers. [00:11:59] Speaker 04: Right. [00:12:00] Speaker 01: There was no finding of whether or not Colorado City's evidence of special circumstances rendered the rolling in of rates to them to be inappropriate. [00:12:15] Speaker 04: Aren't they effectively saying if you're in an integrated situation like this, the claims that you're making normally are going to fall in deaf ears because it's an integrated [00:12:28] Speaker 04: That's if there's a, if it's a burden, isn't it? [00:12:31] Speaker 04: Right. [00:12:31] Speaker 04: Am I together there? [00:12:34] Speaker 04: Right. [00:12:34] Speaker 04: They're essentially saying that it's you can't claim that that is a unique disadvantage to you. [00:12:42] Speaker 04: That's the nature of the integrated situation. [00:12:45] Speaker 04: Right. [00:12:46] Speaker 01: Yes, if you have a finding of an integrated system. [00:12:49] Speaker 04: Remember, we don't have that here. [00:12:51] Speaker 04: The issue that you forfeit it, yes, okay. [00:12:55] Speaker 01: That's a problem. [00:12:56] Speaker 01: That's a problem. [00:12:57] Speaker 01: And I'm sure your honor is thinking of paragraph 44, which I would say comes the closest. [00:13:05] Speaker 01: Paragraph 44 of the original order, that's it, Joint Appendix 445. [00:13:10] Speaker 01: That comes the closest to a finding a fact of integration, and I'll quote it. [00:13:23] Speaker 01: There's two problems with that. [00:13:27] Speaker 01: First of all, it's not a finding of fact because there's no site to any record of evidence and support. [00:13:33] Speaker 01: In fact, the only site to that paragraph, to the record, is to Colorado City's complaint saying, hey, I'm not going to be connected to the power pathway and I'm not going to get any benefits from it. [00:13:44] Speaker 01: The second problem is that in that declaration, FERC declares only that PSCO system as it currently exists operates as an integrated network. [00:13:56] Speaker 01: FERC does not find or even declare that the power pathway [00:14:00] Speaker 01: will at some future point be integrated into that part of the network. [00:14:07] Speaker 01: So it's just the finding is not there. [00:14:10] Speaker 01: And so we can't build the law on that failure to make the finding. [00:14:16] Speaker 04: See, my response is your failure to raise the objection in the petition free hearing makes it difficult for us to approach the case the way you're wanting to approach it. [00:14:28] Speaker 01: I appreciate that. [00:14:29] Speaker 01: I appreciate that. [00:14:30] Speaker 01: And of course, I have to maintain that using the same terminology that FERC itself used was sufficient to alert the court. [00:14:39] Speaker 01: That's the idea, right? [00:14:40] Speaker 01: According to Ameren Services Company from this court, the requirement for the specificity in a request for a hearing is, was the court, was the commission alerted to the issues that it would face on judicial review? [00:14:57] Speaker 01: And since we used the same language that the FERC itself had used, I would have to argue that they were so alerted. [00:15:04] Speaker 05: This is going to be similar to the prior question, but I think what FERC would also point to is paragraph 11 of the rehearing order, which says, I'll simplify just a little bit. [00:15:16] Speaker 05: There's extensive evidence that will improve reliability of the entire network. [00:15:20] Speaker 05: You might be on the other side of the state, but you're connected to the network. [00:15:24] Speaker 05: You benefit. [00:15:25] Speaker 05: Case closed. [00:15:27] Speaker 05: And I just want to give one more chance to understand why that is insufficient. [00:15:31] Speaker 01: I looked at paragraphs 10, 11, and 14 in that second order, the March 24th order. [00:15:39] Speaker 01: And the problem with all of those paragraphs is nowhere in any of those paragraphs or the paragraphs that seeks to incorporate my reference from the earlier order, nowhere is there a finding a fact of integrated whole. [00:15:55] Speaker 01: It's just simply not there. [00:15:56] Speaker 05: So if we're just looking at, was there a finding of reliability benefit to your clients, you don't have an answer specific to that. [00:16:05] Speaker 05: We're going to go back to the first issue. [00:16:07] Speaker 01: I just want to make sure I understand. [00:16:09] Speaker 01: No, I would say, and what you will find in paragraphs 10, 11, and 14 is that general repetition of, well, all of the customers [00:16:20] Speaker 01: on the system received these generalized benefits. [00:16:24] Speaker 01: There's nothing about Colorado City's very specific three special circumstances. [00:16:32] Speaker 06: Thank you. [00:16:35] Speaker 06: Okay, we'll give you some time for rebuttal. [00:16:37] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:16:37] Speaker 06: Thank you, Miss Whipple. [00:16:49] Speaker 06: Mr. Backfield. [00:16:51] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:16:51] Speaker 03: Good morning, Your Honor. [00:16:53] Speaker 03: May it please the Fort Sam Backfield for Respondent Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. [00:16:59] Speaker 03: I suppose I'll begin with where opposing counsel left off, the question of whether the system is integrated. [00:17:05] Speaker 03: There really can be no question that public service operates an integrated transmission system. [00:17:12] Speaker 03: The petitioners are [00:17:15] Speaker 03: transmission service costumers of public service and everything that public service says about the new power pathway demonstrates that the power pathway is designed to provide enhanced transmission service for the system. [00:17:37] Speaker 03: So there's essentially the question of whether or not the power pathway has been integrated yet or will be in some future date is really sort of has no bearing on the particular question of whether the system is integrated or not. [00:17:51] Speaker 03: And nor whether the petitioner Colorado cities receive benefits and transmission service from public service. [00:18:02] Speaker 03: And in fact, as to the question of special circumstances, [00:18:08] Speaker 03: The special circumstances that the commission has described in the past are very different from the circumstances that are present in this case. [00:18:20] Speaker 03: So as a basic matter, where the commission has found or described special circumstances, these are circumstances where a facility simply does not enhance the transmission system as such. [00:18:38] Speaker 03: So for example, a radial transmission line that is only to serve one customer that's unidirectional [00:18:50] Speaker 03: that doesn't impact the rest of the system. [00:18:52] Speaker 03: It doesn't relieve congestion. [00:18:54] Speaker 03: It doesn't promote resiliency. [00:18:56] Speaker 03: Something like that or deferred precedent would be arguably special circumstances. [00:19:02] Speaker 03: Similarly, a step-up transformer unit that's solely constructed in order to help a particular generation facility get its energy onto the system. [00:19:15] Speaker 03: That might be. [00:19:17] Speaker 03: A, an example of an exception to the long-standing policy of rolling in rates for the costs of transmission expenditures. [00:19:29] Speaker 03: So the reason why the commission has developed this practice, this default practice of rolling in these costs to rates is because at a certain level, [00:19:44] Speaker 03: the benefits to the system benefit the entire system in a way that can't be disaggregated at a granular level on a customer by customer basis. [00:19:56] Speaker 03: Partly, I think this is because of the physics of the system where [00:20:02] Speaker 03: it's uncertain how things will flow from one moment to another. [00:20:06] Speaker 03: There is a kind of irreducible uncertainty. [00:20:09] Speaker 03: And that is part of the reason why this court and others have described a transmission service system as essentially a single machine or a single piece of machinery that operates as a whole. [00:20:21] Speaker 03: So when a project like the Power Pathway comes online and it enhances the resilience and [00:20:33] Speaker 03: the capacity of the public service system when it allows improved liability, enhanced deliverability, improved voltage stability, et cetera. [00:20:47] Speaker 03: These are benefits that accrue to all of public services customers. [00:20:53] Speaker 03: And that, by the way, is consistent not just with the unrebutted expert testimony that public service submitted in the Gilbert Flores affidavit, but also is consistent with the findings of the Colorado Public Utility Commission, which is charged [00:21:09] Speaker 03: with promoting the interests of and protecting the interests of Colorado rate payers. [00:21:15] Speaker 03: And what the Colorado Public Utility Commission found was that this facility, this project, the Power Pathway Project was needed [00:21:27] Speaker 03: in order to promote and enhance reliability and to promote adding additional generation onto the system because the current system as presently configured was not sufficient to manage the amount of renewable energy that is going to be required. [00:21:49] Speaker 05: Can you explain a clarifying question about whether there's this Mansfield test and then there's special circumstances? [00:21:56] Speaker 05: And the way you describe special circumstances sounds a lot like what the Mansfield test is getting at. [00:22:02] Speaker 03: Yeah, in some instances. [00:22:04] Speaker 03: So the Mansfield test, I think that the protectionists have slightly misapprehended it. [00:22:11] Speaker 03: It's not a standard test that the commission will always apply when the question of cost allocation arises. [00:22:18] Speaker 03: It is a particular [00:22:20] Speaker 03: it's a sort of rubric or methodology for ascertaining whether or not particular assets should, the costs of particular assets should be assigned directly to a particular customer. [00:22:33] Speaker 03: And this is not, this is a very big project, this is not a small project. [00:22:38] Speaker 03: In general, that's where the Mansfield test has arisen, is when there are small projects that look like they are really intended to benefit a particular [00:22:47] Speaker 05: It's never been used to exclude one or a subset of customers from otherwise ruled in rates that it's sort of the opposite. [00:22:56] Speaker 05: It seems to be what they're asking for here. [00:22:59] Speaker 03: Yes, it is the opposite. [00:23:00] Speaker 03: And it's actually sort of the opposite of what [00:23:06] Speaker 03: the petitioners had been driving with the cities had been driving at in the FERC proceeding where their principle argument seems to have been that the cost should actually be allocated more widely, not more narrowly. [00:23:18] Speaker 03: But the Mansfield test is a test for allocating costs more narrowly. [00:23:25] Speaker 03: So as for the particulars, yeah, they did argue, they did advance these three arguments as to why special circumstances exist. [00:23:34] Speaker 03: But fundamentally, they don't wash because they are connected to the public service system and they receive transmission service from public service. [00:23:46] Speaker 03: And the power pathway is designed to enhance that service. [00:23:51] Speaker 03: The fact that they're not directly connected to a particular piece of hardware is not relevant. [00:23:56] Speaker 03: The fact that there is a mountain range in between the facilities and their customers is also not relevant, at least for purposes of ascertaining whether the costs of the project should be rolled into rates or not. [00:24:15] Speaker 06: Make sure we don't have additional questions for you. [00:24:18] Speaker 06: Thank you. [00:24:26] Speaker 06: Mr. Skis. [00:24:36] Speaker 02: Good morning. [00:24:36] Speaker 02: May it please the court? [00:24:37] Speaker 02: I'm Daniel Skies, counsel to intervener, Excel Energy Services, and supporting the Respondent Commission in this case. [00:24:43] Speaker 02: The petition should be dismissed for two reasons. [00:24:46] Speaker 02: First, both of the arguments raised by the petitioners are barred by the Federal Power Act. [00:24:50] Speaker 02: Neither argument was raised on rehearing, depriving the commission of an opportunity and a fair opportunity to address any of those claims at the agency level before the petition was brought to the court. [00:25:01] Speaker 02: Second, the petitioners have failed to demonstrate that the existing transmission rate is unjust or unreasonable, which they were required to do as complainants, bringing this complaint under Section 206 of the Federal Power Act. [00:25:14] Speaker 02: Expanding on that last point, first I would note that it was the obligation of the petitioners to show that the power pathway is not integrated, in which case the commission would then be able to make a finding. [00:25:24] Speaker 02: They failed to do so. [00:25:25] Speaker 02: They failed to raise the issue. [00:25:27] Speaker 02: And in fact, the ways in which the project was described in the underlying proceedings suggested that, you know, [00:25:34] Speaker 02: high-voltage, 345 kV, 560-mile looped transmission facility that would be part of the bulk power system network that PSCO operates gave no reason to believe that integration was at all at issue. [00:25:48] Speaker 02: Second, the petitioners have failed to show that their allocation of costs as network customers of the public service company of Colorado are unjust or unreasonable. [00:26:00] Speaker 02: As discussed in the record, they're allocated approximately 0.5% of the costs of public service companies transmission service. [00:26:10] Speaker 02: That includes about 0.5% of the costs of these facilities that are at issue. [00:26:15] Speaker 02: and it was their burden as a complainant under Section 206 to demonstrate that that was unjust and unreasonable. [00:26:21] Speaker 02: They failed to do so. [00:26:23] Speaker 05: Five from your perspective, but it's a 114% increase from their perspective. [00:26:27] Speaker 05: Is there sort of some point at which a generalized reliability benefit would be insufficient to justify, you know, pretty dramatic increase in cost? [00:26:41] Speaker 02: So the cost causation test is what would apply there and it depends on determining whether or not the benefits are roughly commensurate with the costs that are being imposed. [00:26:51] Speaker 02: And as this court found in the 2014 South Carolina public authority case, public service authority case, the presumption of [00:27:02] Speaker 02: and benefits to all the members of an integrated system is something that the court has repeatedly relied on. [00:27:08] Speaker 02: And here, so in response to your question, your honor, we would look at what the benefits are, what the costs were resulting, and whether or not that was roughly commensurate. [00:27:20] Speaker 02: And here they unquestionably were. [00:27:22] Speaker 02: The public service company of Colorado, Xcel Energy Services, submitted a detailed affidavit saying here are all the specific engineering benefits [00:27:31] Speaker 02: including things like increased resilience, access to reserve resources, increased reliability. [00:27:39] Speaker 02: And that was unrebutted on the record below. [00:27:42] Speaker 02: The commission relied on that as well as relied on their own findings on the review of the evidence to conclude that there was no reason that no [00:27:50] Speaker 02: that the petitioners and the complainants below had never demonstrated a reason to find that the existing rate was unjust and unreasonable. [00:27:59] Speaker 02: And as a result, we would urge the court to dismiss the petition. [00:28:02] Speaker 06: Thank you, counsel. [00:28:05] Speaker 02: Thank you, your honor. [00:28:10] Speaker 06: Swippa will give you the two minutes of rebuttal you asked for. [00:28:12] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:28:14] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:28:14] Speaker 01: Thank you your honors with our focus on Colorado City special circumstances, looking at excels Gilbert Flores affidavit, giving it its most generous reading. [00:28:27] Speaker 01: It fails on the second, third and fifth Mansfield factors. [00:28:32] Speaker 01: It does not tell us that the Power Pathway operates bi-directionally. [00:28:37] Speaker 01: It does not advise whether the Power Pathway provides service only to PSGO or also to other transmission customers. [00:28:45] Speaker 01: And it does not advise whether an outage on Power Pathway would affect the larger transmission system. [00:28:52] Speaker 01: And all of that is at joint appendix [00:28:55] Speaker 01: So, what we've got is FERC's record of evidence which lacks the necessary evidence for just and reasonable rolled in transmission rates for this hundred and fourteen percent increase. [00:29:12] Speaker 01: This wrong can be remedied with the remand because it will allow FERC to either make the two findings required by its long-standing precedent or provide a reasoned explanation why it departed from that long-standing precedent and maybe give us guidance for the future. [00:29:30] Speaker 01: or for could even reopen the record of evidence so that the parties may provide all of the evidence necessary to make the necessary findings so that this monopoly and that I mean all utilities operate as a monopoly right so that this monopoly is regulated so that its rates [00:29:49] Speaker 01: are just and reasonable, particularly for these Colorado cities which are not for profit. [00:29:56] Speaker 01: They simply pass the costs on. [00:29:58] Speaker 01: Their customers will experience rate shock of 114%. [00:30:01] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:30:02] Speaker 01: Thank you, council. [00:30:05] Speaker 06: Thank you to all council. [00:30:06] Speaker 06: We'll take this case under submission.