Federal Energy Regulatory
D.C. Circuit keeps MISO refund fights alive
The panel said transmission owners failed to show a live injury from repeat complaints over the same return rate. That leaves the door open for another round of FERC challenges, but it does not decide the rate itself.
Transmission owners lost their bid to block repeat complaints over the same MISO return rate. The D.C. Circuit dismissed the standing claim for lack of jurisdiction, leaving the refund fight open.
- Utilities could not block repeat complaints over the same MISO return rate.
- The D.C. Circuit dismissed the standing challenge for lack of jurisdiction.
- The ruling keeps a refund path open, but it does not decide the rate itself.
- Electric bills tied to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, grid stayed exposed to repeat refund challenges on June 5, 2026, after the D.C
- Circuit said transmission owners had not shown enough to block serial complaints over the same return rate
Electric bills tied to the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, or MISO, grid stayed exposed to repeat refund challenges on June 5, 2026, after the D.C. Circuit said transmission owners had not shown enough to block serial complaints over the same return rate. The panel threw out that attempt for lack of jurisdiction, leaving customers, state regulators and other challengers able to keep pressing the same rate question at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.
The utilities said successive complaints aimed at the same return rate would let challengers get around the Federal Power Act’s 15-month refund limit. The court did not take up the merits of that theory. It said the owners failed to make the requisite showing, so the standing-based challenge could not shut the door.
A limit the court would not stretch
That matters because the 15-month refund rule is the main guardrail utilities leaned on. If repeat complaints could be shut out at the courthouse door, the broader MISO rate fight would get much harder to keep alive. The court refused to do that here, which leaves FERC and later challengers free to keep testing the same return-rate issue in new proceedings.
What stays on the table
The ruling does not say the disputed rate is wrong, and it does not order any refund on its own. It only keeps open a legal path that could put older transmission charges back under pressure. For electric customers on the MISO grid, that means the fight over what they paid, and whether some of it can still be revisited, is not closed off by this standing decision.