CA1: mandate or law of the case?

New England Power Co v. FERC, No. 07-2418.  This is a very long piece of litigation.  Essentially it comes down to whether FERC in ordering a power company to change its rates applied in the past properly ordered it to apply a lower interest rate to such rates.  While a lot of this is really about energy rate nerdery, it really comes down to whether FERC understood the scope of a previous remand, and whether it was properly applying the “law of the case” doctrine.  But the First says that FERC did such a bad job addressing the issues that it is just going to remand to do it again.  Cudahy dissents saying that FERC acted reasonably, and that when dealing with a mandate issue, the First should not go back and broaden the mandate.