8
Opinion of the Court
power companies to transmit electric energy over long distances at a low cost. As FERC has explained, "the nature and magnitude of coordination transactions" have enabled utilities to operate more efficiently by transferring substantial amounts of electricity not only from plant to plant in one area, but also from region to region, as market conditions fluctuate. Order No. 888, at 31,641.
Despite these advances in technology that have increased the number of electricity providers and have made it possible for a "customer in Vermont [to] purchase electricity from an environmentally friendly power producer in California or a cogeneration facility in Oklahoma," Transmission Access Policy Study Group v. FERC, 225 F. 3d 667, 681 (CADC 2000) (case below), public utilities retain ownership of the transmission lines that must be used by their competitors to deliver electric energy to wholesale and retail customers. The utilities' control of transmission facilities gives them the power either to refuse to deliver energy produced by competitors or to deliver competitors' power on terms and condi-miles per second, such energy can be and is transmitted to FPL when needed from out-of-state generators, and in turn can be and is transmitted from FPL to help meet out-of-state demands; . . . there is a cause and effect relationship in electric energy occurring throughout every generator and point on the FPL, Corp, Georgia, and Southern systems which constitutes interstate transmission of electric energy by, to, and from FPL." In re Florida Power & Light Co., 37 F. P. C. 544, 549 (1967). This Court found the FPC's findings sufficient to establish the FPC's jurisdiction. FPC v. Florida Power & Light Co., 404 U. S. 453, 469 (1972).
As amici explain in less technical terms, "[e]nergy flowing onto a power network or grid energizes the entire grid, and consumers then draw undifferentiated energy from that grid." Brief for Electrical Engineers et al. as Amici Curiae 2. As a result, explain amici, any activity on the interstate grid affects the rest of the grid. Ibid. Amici dispute the States' contentions that electricity functions "the way water flows through a pipe or blood cells flow through a vein" and "can be controlled, directed and traced" as these substances can be, calling such metaphors "inaccurate and highly misleading." Id., at 2, 5.
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