Energy Legal Blog

A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) Order Nos. 720 and 720-A, which imposed new requirements on non-interstate pipelines not normally subject to FERC’s jurisdiction over interstate natural gas pipelines. In an October 24, 2011 decision, the Court concluded that the orders exceed the scope of FERC’s statutory authority under the Natural Gas Act of 1938 (NGA). (more…)

Citing the ever-increasing volume and complexity of physical and financial trading in the regional transmission organizations (RTO) and independent system operators (ISO), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) on October 20, 2011.  If adopted as a final rule, the proposals in the NOPR will increase dramatically the amount of trading data collected by the Commission for market monitoring. 

Without altering the role of the market monitors, the proposed rule will augment the oversight responsibilities of the market monitors by providing the Commission the data necessary to review trading activity in and across RTO and ISO regions for illicit or manipulative behavior or ineffective market rules.  The Commission also suggested other uses for the data, such as reviewing the scheduling of renewable resources and how renewable energy schedules compare with actual real-time performance. (more…)

In the aftermath of the offshore wind industry’s recently completed annual get-together in Baltimore last week, there are many signs of success on the ocean blue’s horizon. While those possibilities shine brightly in a number of key areas, the industry is also facing some difficult challenges.

First, the good news. The industry still continues to grow broadly in terms of people developing, constructing and looking to invest in wind projects and its related industrial activity. The conference in Baltimore again had a near-record turnout for an industry that still has yet to build a project in North America. (more…)

Last week, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation released its draft regulations for hydraulic fracturing. These are based on the agency’s revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement issued last month. (more…)

Bracewell & Giuliani attorney and former Department of Energy official Salo Zelermyer appeared on Fox Business yesterday to discuss the Solyndra bankruptcy and the DOE’s loan guarantee review and approval process. The solar-panel maker collapsed last month despite being awarded $535 million of loan guarantees from the federal government. Zelermyer served as Senior Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel at the DOE under President George W. Bush.