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(TNSgov) -- The Southern Environmental Law Center issued the following news release on July 17, 2023:
Last week, the D.C. Circuit agreed with a coalition of environmental organizations, clean energy advocates, consumer advocates, and clean energy trade groups by ruling that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had unlawfully approved the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM). The proposal to create SEEM came from some of the largest monopoly utilities in the country, including Southern Company, Duke Energy, and Dominion Energy.
"This decision shows that nobody, not even the country's most powerful monopoly utilities, are above the law," said Maia Hutt, SELC staff attorney. "The Southeast deserves an energy market that facilitates independent clean energy generation and brings down costs for consumers. SEEM did neither, and instead unlawfully privileged coal- and gas-powered, monopoly-owned generation over the independent, clean energy that our region needs. This decision is a significant victory for independent clean energy producers, bill-paying families, and the environment of the Southeast."
"Today the court effectively shut down SEEM and ruled that FERC had failed to justify its approval under FERC's own Open Access Rules," said Danielle Fidler, Earthjustice senior attorney. "SEEM was disadvantaging independent clean energy generators and privileging its utility members, creating conditions that would allow some of the nation's largest monopoly utilities to prop...