PORTLAND — The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to review a multibillion settlement between the Bonneville Power Administration and customers who claimed they were overcharged for electricity generated by Columbia River dams.
The ruling on Monday says the settlement that set new rates and terms for refunding overcharged customers was lawful.
The settlement concerns the BPA’s residential exchange program, established in the 1980s to provide customers of private investor-owned utilities with a share of the electricity sold mostly to public utilities around the region.
BPA estimates the net present value of the settlement to be about $2 billion dollars over a 17-year period.
The settlement was challenged in court by the Association of Public Agency Customers, a group of industrial companies that purchase BPA power from public utilities.
