FERC Order Issued 3/28/01 Rejecting SPP/Entergy,s RTO 

 The Commissioners were generally displeased by SPP and Entergy,s lack of 
substantive work toward complying with the Commission,s previous orders and 
failure to sufficiently discuss the feasibility of a broader RTO.  As Chair 
Herbert said:  SPP should have read the Commission,s order in May and taken 
it more seriously.  (Issues for possible rehearing are ****).

? The Commission declined to approve SPP,s scope and configuration because 
the SPP members remain uncommitted to the RTO and have not made a decision to 
transfer operational control and the SPP/Entergy relationship remains 
somewhat undefined.  The Commission wants to see evidence of serious efforts 
to form RTOs that combine current RTO proposals and Entergy and SPP must file 
a report by May 25 addressing this scope issue.

 o Bulk power sales and purchase figures indicate that natural markets extend 
beyond the SPP RTO borders.  There are significant sales and purchases 
between SPP and SERC (and Midwest companies to a lesser extent.)
 o Expect the existing TOs to file Section 203 applications to transfer 
control of transmission to SPP.
 o MOU must be clarified to demonstrate that the minimum requirements of an 
RTO, such as operational authority, ATC calculation and planning/expansion, 
will be met.

? Approves Entergy,s proposal for a Managing Member that controls all voting 
rights to the Transco and approves Entergy,s Board approval process (states 
that Entergy would control no more than two of the selection committee,s 
seven members). 

? Allows Southwestern Public Service Company to satisfy its merger obligation 
by joining SPP instead of MISO.

? The Commission did not address EPMI,s motion to condition market based rate 
authority on RTO participation.******