Wire
$1.6B grid rate fight gets no fresh look from appeals court
The panel said the Louisiana challenge could not go forward because the claimed injuries were either not redressable or not imminent. For MISO customers, the disputed charges stay tied to the same old order for now.
Electric customers and the companies that own power lines across the Midcontinent Independent System Operator grid saw one more attempt to reopen the MISO rate fight run into a dead end. On June 5, 2026, the D.C. Circuit dismissed the remaining challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s, or FERC’s, remand order, saying the utilities had not shown a live injury the court could fix.
The ruling leaves FERC’s decision in place and closes another path back to the disputed transmission charges that have been the subject of repeated litigation.
Two injuries that did not hold up
The panel said the transmission owners’ first claimed injury was not redressable. In plain terms, the judges saw no way a favorable ruling now would undo the harm the utilities said they had already suffered.
Their second claimed injury also failed, because it was not imminent. That meant the threat they pointed to was too uncertain and too far off to support federal court review.
What stays in place
With no redressable injury and no imminent injury, the court said it lacked jurisdiction to keep the case alive. The practical effect is simple: FERC’s remand order survives, and the utilities do not get the judicial reset they were seeking in this part of the MISO dispute.
For people watching the fight over power charges on the regional grid, the decision matters because it leaves one more piece of the rate structure untouched while the broader battle over MISO transmission costs continues elsewhere.