Saying that Southern California Edison had no control over the energy in question, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff proposed to drop charges November 3 that the utility was involved in gaming during the energy crisis. Edison agreed to return about $10,000 it made on transactions. Edison has been one of the parties pursuing litigation against those marketers it claims gamed the system and had not often been considered a ?gamer? itself. But FERC staff had questioned a couple of its moves?asking the utility to give evidence on cutting non-firm energy (a practice employed when a seller couldn?t deliver or had no intention of delivering power) and circular scheduling (a.k.a. ?Death Star,? when a company schedules counterflow to receive relief payments for congestion). On the ?cutting? accusation over transactions from Hoover Dam, staff said that electricity ?cuts were not within Edison?s control.? For the ?Death Star? accusations, FERC staff said, ?These cases were simply due to circumstance and were not instances of circular scheduling.? However, Edison had to promise to return to the grid operator $10,200 it was paid for the instance.