The Federal Power Act draws a bright line between wholesale electricity sales and transmission in interstate commerce, which fall under FERC's exclusive jurisdiction, and retail sales to end-use customers, which remain within state authority — a split the Supreme Court has repeatedly reinforced even as new market structures, such as demand response and distributed storage, blur the practical line between wholesale and retail activity.

The filed-rate doctrine gives FERC-approved wholesale rates preemptive effect against state-law claims, including tort and contract theories, that would effectively challenge the reasonableness of a federally approved rate through a different forum, which frequently defeats state-court suits premised on allegedly excessive wholesale energy charges. Interconnection, transmission siting, and market-participation disputes involving new technologies are recurring flashpoints where the wholesale-retail jurisdictional line is actively contested.

Because a jurisdictional ruling can determine which regulator, and which body of law, governs an entire dispute, the threshold jurisdiction question often has more practical significance than the underlying substantive claim. A Juricratic simulation can model jurisdictional-outcome uncertainty as its own dial, separate from the merits of the underlying rate or practice dispute, to rehearse how forum uncertainty shapes overall litigation strategy.

FERC jurisdiction disputes typically arise when a state commission or a market participant challenges whether a given transaction, facility, or practice — such as a demand response program or a new storage resource's market participation — falls under FERC's wholesale jurisdiction or the state's retail authority, often litigated through a FERC declaratory order proceeding followed by circuit court review.