Summary

  • FERC’s June 18, 2026 orders opened six separate Federal Power Act §206 cases and gave the regions a common response timetable. They were preliminary show-cause proceedings, not a nationwide large-load tariff.
  • NYISO’s later 90-day pause shows what the shared process leaves to regional design: tariff proposals must be built with transmission owners and coordinated with state retail regulators, then filed and acted on before new terms take effect.

Analysis

A common clock is a procedural choice

On June 18 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued show-cause orders to PJM, MISO, Southwest Power Pool, CAISO, ISO New England and the New York Independent System Operator. Under Federal Power Act §206, each operator and its relevant transmission owners had 60 days to explain why existing tariff provisions remained just and reasonable or to propose changes. They also had to report within 30 days on how adequate generation would be available to serve existing and new large loads.

The orders put a common set of questions on the record: how applications and studies should work; how transmission costs should be made visible and assigned; how co-located load and behind-the-meter generation should be treated; what service could be offered to flexible loads; and how a generator serving a nearby load should be studied. But the Commission issued six orders, not one rulebook. It said regional solutions should reflect differences among the systems.

That distinction matters. A show-cause order is a legal demand for an answer, grounded in a preliminary finding that a tariff may be unjust or unreasonable. It does not itself rewrite every tariff term under review. An operator may answer the case, file a tariff revision under §205, or take another route the Commission allows. FERC then decides what to accept or require. Until that happens, the current tariff remains the operating reference.

New York’s pause reveals the work between order and tariff

NYISO said its load-interconnection rules and its Commission-approved financial transmission reservation model differ from the pro-forma transmission tariff used elsewhere. It was already running a stakeholder process and told FERC that a regional response needed input from NYISO, transmission owners and affected stakeholders.

On August 3, NYISO, New York transmission owners and non-incumbent transmission owners asked to pause the §206 case for 90 days while they developed possible tariff filings. FERC granted the request on August 14. The Commission set November 16, 2026 as the date for show-cause responses and answers for December 16. NYISO said it intended to submit a §205 filing by November 16, subject to its stakeholder and board approvals. The filing was still a future target on October 9, not an accepted or effective tariff.

The proposed work was concrete: a new large-load study process; firm and non-firm transmission service; rules for co-located load; cost-recovery and transparency measures; operating requirements; and studies for generation electrically near a load. Transmission owners said they needed to coordinate on cost recovery and on how any customer payments would be credited to their transmission revenue requirements. They also said state coordination mattered.

The state line is part of the tariff design

FERC’s New York order draws a boundary rather than claiming the whole bill. The Commission says it has exclusive authority over jurisdictional transmission rates and the tariff processes that directly affect them. States retain authority over retail sales and rate design, how costs are allocated among retail customers, who may sell power to those customers, and where generation may be sited.

That division makes cost transparency operationally important. FERC said better information about transmission upgrades can help state regulators decide how those costs should appear in retail rates. NYISO’s transmission owners described coordination with the New York Public Service Commission so that state cost-allocation decisions could be reflected in the federal tariff proposals. Neither step substitutes for the other: a wholesale tariff can assign a transmission obligation, while a state determines how retail customers ultimately pay state-jurisdictional costs.

Four tracks, four different legal meanings

The RM26-4 advance notice of proposed rulemaking is the broad rulemaking track. The June §206 orders are targeted proceedings about particular regional tariffs. A §205 filing is an operator’s proposed tariff change. Existing tariff text is what applies until the Commission changes or accepts something else. Treating these as one process turns a proposal into a rule before the legal step has occurred.

The design question resembles the one in Heng Lu’s Note 64: keep the common layer to what must be common, leave later choices where operational knowledge sits, and distinguish a published proposal from a change actually adopted in use. The analogy has limits. Electricity tariffs are governed by federal and state statutes; RTOs and utilities cannot opt out of lawful requirements by declining a proposal. Here, adoption means the identifiable legal and operational steps that make a tariff effective.

So far, FERC has standardized the questions and deadlines more than the answers. The New York pause is not proof that the process failed or that delay is costless. It is evidence that a federal finding can start a regional design process without deciding the final service, cost allocation or retail bill. Whether the six cases produce comparable protections or six different models will be visible in the filed tariffs and the Commission’s orders—not in the June timetable alone.

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