Under FPA section 6,1 each license must have a stated term of years. Starting on license issuance, the term runs between 30 and 50 years.2 At the end of the stated term, the licensee must undertake the relicensing process described in Section 3.2.
As a rule of thumb, FERC generally grants a term of 30 years in a new license which includes few operational or capital improvements, 40 years for some operational but no capital improvements, and 50 years for operational and capital improvements. 3
License term is an important issue in settlement negotiations. Because of the value of a longer license term, a licensee may be willing to negotiate more costly environmental conditions in exchange for a longer license term.
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16 U.S.C. § 799.
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See id. (“Licenses under this subchapter shall be issued for a period not exceeding fifty years.”). See also 16 U.S.C. § 808(e).
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See, e.g., Ford Motor Company, 110 FERC ¶ 61, 236, (March 4, 2005).
