OK Energy Today reported on AEE's webinar on the net metering challenge filed with FERC, quoting speakers Ted Thomas (Ark. PSC), John McCaffrey (APPA). Read excerpts below and the entire OK Energy Today piece here. 

Some regulators across the U.S. are coming out in opposition to a federal plan for net-metering, a proposal affecting solar and wind power users who can be charged by utilities. One of those regulators is the head of the Arkansas Public Service Commission, Ted Thomas. He feels the federal “one plan fits all” proposal is a “threat” to state policies. “We have project developers with hundreds of hours coming up with innovative things that address some of these issues, and [NERA wants] a one-size-fits-all federalization. That’s what’s at stake and I obviously don’t like that,” Thomas said Wednesday in a speech to an Advanced Energy Economy webinar...

Thomas, who spoke on the issue during the webinar, is leading a volunteer working group under the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners (NARUC) to prepare comments on the petition, which was first filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by the New England Ratepayers Association (NERA) in April. States have been particularly vocal in their opposition to the NERA petition, joined by Democratic federal lawmakers, clean energy advocates and others. Power trade associations, including Edison Electric Institute, Electric Power Supply Association and American Public Power Association have stayed largely quite thus far on how they’ll weigh in...

“APPA is still developing its response to the petition and receiving input from members,” John McCaffrey, senior regulatory counsel for APPA said Wednesday during the webinar, though public power utilities across the country do have net metering programs that would be “jeopardized” by the NERA filing. “At a very high level, when it comes to distributed energy resources, generally APPA has consistently supported policies that allow decisions to be made at the local level,” he said, adding that “granting the petition would be essentially the opposite of that position...”

Read the entire OK Energy Today piece here.