Comments on Draft of NWRTO Bylaws

[Carl Imparato for Power Marketer Group - July 8, 2000]

Note: The following comments do not address the major issues that are being considered in the Governance subgroup.  We agree that:

•	The member class definitions need to be revisited

•	The duties and structure of the Technical Advisory Committee need to be revisited (and support the proposal to make the TAC an “open committee” with no membership requirements, member class distinctions, and no authorities other than to select the Governing Board members)

Specific Comments

1.	Section 1 (Defined Terms):  This section should incorporate by reference the following definitions in the RTO Tariff.   In addition:

•	Access Pricing Area: is there a need for this in the Bylaws?

•	Ancillary Services: the current definition is probably incorrect.

•	Control Area: the current definition is incorrect.

•	IndeGO-Controlled Transmission Facilities: why is there a distinction between the IndeGO Transmission System and the IndeGO-Controlled Transmission Facilities?	

•	IndeGO Tariffs: should be singular not plural.  Why would there be more than one RTO Tariff?

•	Transmission Control Agreement: there should only be one TCA (not many TCAs)

2.	Article III, Section 1 (f): should be reworded:  “To effectively manage constraints on the RTO Transmission System and to take such actions as are required to relieve transmission congestion and avoid or minimize outages on the RTO Transmission System or on interconnected transmission facilities.”

3.	Article III, Section 1 (i) should be reworded, because the RTO will not operate an OASIS per se (since OASIS is an Order 888/889-specific concept that does not make sense in the RTO model), but will operate “an RTO website that meets FERC requirements.”

4.	Article III, Section 1 (j):  must be reworded to eliminate the phrase “and shall not include in its tariffs (or permit its tariffs to include) any provisions for the use of any local distribution facilities)”. This language is clearly inconsistent with: (i) the generation interconnection obligations of the RTO, (ii) the planning obligations of the RTO (in which the RTO must play a key role in ensuring the fair evaluation of transmission, distribution, generation, distributed generation and DSM alternatives) and (iii) the retail access obligations of the RTO.  All of these require FERC-jurisdictional services to be managed at all voltage levels, not just at the transmission level). 

5.	Article III, Section 2:  the reference to “the TCAs and other contracts, tariffs and protocols…” should be changed to “the RTO Tariff and other contracts.”  Clearly, the RTO Tariff, and not the TCA, must be the guiding document for the RTO.

6.	Article IV, Section 4 (e):  The prohibition on affiliates of members becoming members seems draconian and counter-productive. Virtually all of the vertically-integrated utilities will sooner or later break up into separate wires entities, generation entities and load-serving entities.  Does it make sense to prohibit the participation of major market participants in the RTO?  (E.g., why should BPA have to choose between either TBL or PBL being a Member?)

7.	Article VI, Section 4:  As noted above, the duties and structure of the Technical Advisory Committee should be revisited.  There is no need for the TAC to even have any membership requirements as long as the TAC simply ensures that all positions that are advocated within the TAC are forwarded to the Board for consideration.

8.	Exhibit C (Dispute Resolution):  this should be dropped entirely and the dispute resolution provisions in the RTO Tariff should be incorporated by reference.

9.	The Code of Conduct in the Bylaws is inadequate in that it does not apply to employees of a Participating Transmission Operator which is allowed to perform a Control Area Operator function under the umbrella of the RTO.  If PTOs are allowed to perform RTO functions, there must be a strong Code of Conduct and the PTO’s CAO staff should have an obligation to look out for the RTO’s interests rather than those of the PTO.

[CFI   NWRTO-Bylaws-comments-CFI-070800.rtf]