Illinois Atty. Genl. withdraws claim on electric plants
A couple weeks ago I wrote that Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan had accused Edison MIssion Energy of continuing a suspicious bidding pattern that it had promised to stop. Edison Mission had admitted to a troublesome "high offer" strategy that kept electricity off the Mid-Atlantic grid and might have driven up wholesale prices.
Two weeks ago Madigan identified plants she said looked like Edison's that were continuing "high offer" shenanigans. She asked federal regulators to reopen the Edison case and look into it. Now, based on information from PJM Interconnection, which manages the grid from here to Illinois, she has withdrawn the allegation that the identified plants have continued the strategy. But she still contends that Edision still may be withholding power from the grid in some other fashion in an effort to influence prices.
UPDATE: Edison Mission spokesman Doug McFarlan denies this, saying; "We stand by our prior statements that we act in compliance with PJM bidding rules."
And Madigan still wants the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reopen the case.
From the new filing:
As discussed below, this new information indicates that the evidence proffered in the Initial Filing does not show that Edison continued to use the High Offer Strategy after April 2006. At the same time, the People renew their request to reopen the record in this docket to investigate the other evidence presented in the Initial Filing, which indicates that Edison Mission is withholding capacity resources owned and operated by its subsidiary, Midwest Generation, from the PJM day ahead market.PJM has now disclosed new information which shows that certain generating units listed in the Affidavit are not owned by Edison Mission.
AND:
FERC should investigate the other evidence of economic withholding. While the new information provided by PJM resolves questions raised by bidding data that resembled Edison Mission’s High Offer Strategy, there are still significant questions about Edison Mission’s bidding behavior that remain to be addressed.
Comments
When Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia filed a friend-of-the-court brief in June arguing that the State Supreme Court should review a $382 million judgment against the DuPont Company, he said he was not taking sides, but acting in the interest of due process. Documents from the governor’s office, however, show that Mr. Manchin had consulted with the company before filing the brief, and DuPont officials say the governor even asked them to provide him with a draft brief. The case involves thousands of residents in and around Spelter, W.Va., where DuPont operated a zinc-smelting plant. Last October, a jury in Harrison County ruled that DuPont deliberately endangered those residents by dumping toxic arsenic, cadmium and lead at the plant.
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Sheik
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