On September 21, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a decision setting aside Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders denying TransCanada Corporation subsidiary ANR Storage Company’s (ANRS) request for authorization to charge market-based rates and remanding the matter to FERC for further proceedings. ANR Storage Co. v. FERC, ___ F.3d ___, 2018 WL 4515905 (D.C. Cir. 2018). The court’s decision addressed a series of FERC orders, the latest of which was issued in 2016, in which FERC found that ANRS had failed to demonstrate that it lacked significant market power as to natural gas storage services in the relevant geographic market and accordingly denied ANRS’s request.

The court’s decision may have significant implications for interstate natural gas pipelines and other storage operators that wish to move away from cost-based rate regulation.