Virginia AG Protested Petition that Requested FERC Assert Jurisdiction Over Net Metering

JUNE 15, 2020

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring filed a protest urging the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to deny a petition that requested the commission assert federal jurisdiction over net metering. If approved, the petition would upend existing state-based net metering programs and dramatically slow the growth of rooftop solar and other kinds of distributed electricity generation. In the protest, Attorney General Herring asserted that the petition poses a “strawman jurisdictional question” and that “Congress has made clear that states have jurisdiction over net metering.” AG Herring emphasized that granting the “unfounded request” would “upend Virginia’s twenty-one year old program, in which an expanding number of Virginians participate.”