Energy Legal Blog

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has upheld FERC’s decision to remove price ceilings on short term (one year or less) capacity releases by shippers on natural gas pipelines, while maintaining price ceilings on capacity sales by the pipelines themselves.  The court’s decision, issued on August 13 in Interstate Natural Gas Assoc. of America v. FERC, rejected arguments from an association of pipelines that FERC had impermissibly subjected pipelines and shippers to different regulatory standards in the same short-term capacity sales market. (more…)

The D.C. Circuit threw into doubt FERC’s station-power policies with a May 4, 2010 ruling, holding that FERC has not explained adequately its authority to prevent states from imposing retail-delivery or other charges for power that generators use for their heating, lighting, air conditioning and office equipment purposes—called “station power”—when that power is deemed to be self-supplied using a monthly netting of what the station delivers to and takes off of the grid. The Court vacated and remanded FERC orders regarding station-power tariff provisions and directed further proceedings, leaving open the possibility that FERC could justify its station-power policies on remand. Generators’ use of station power became an issue of debate in the wake of Order 888’s unbundling of vertically integrated utilities. (more…)

At a recent energy industry forum, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar left few clues as to what the Administration would decide regarding the Department’s Five-Year Leasing Program for 2007-2012 and the draft  2010-2015 plan proposed by the outgoing Bush Administration that would greatly expand offshore leasing for oil and gas exploration and production. As Salazar put it, “We’ll try to bring all those together in the next – very soon.” (more…)

PR News announced that Bracewell & Giuliani’s Energy Legal Blog will be recognized as the best “Legal PR Blog” at its annual Corporate Social Responsibility & Legal Awards Luncheon on February 24, 2010 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. This award recognizes an outstanding and influential law-related weblog or online journal written by a representative of the organization with the goal of espousing the brand or a certain message and written with flair and personality.

“Managing a crisis and working with legal counsel are two areas of communication that will always be a part of a PR professional’s responsibilities,” notes Diane Schwartz, vice president of PR News. “The Legal PR Awards shines a light both on how law firms are communicating to their stakeholders and to how the PR industry is in the driver’s seat when a crisis hits.”

More information on the award program and this year’s winners is available at http://www.prnewsonline.com/awards/csr2009_event-finalists.html.

The Supreme Court (8-1) in a January 13 decision confirmed that the “Mobile-Sierra presumption” that rates and terms of a wholesale power or natural gas contract are presumed to be just and reasonable applies as against all challenges and challengers, including non-parties to the contract, so long as the contract was freely negotiated at arm’s length.  In NRG Power Marketing, LLC v. Maine Pub. Utils. Comm’n (NRG), Justice Ginsburg writing for the majority reversed a 2008 DC Circuit ruling in Maine Pub. Utils. Comm’n v. FERC (Maine PUC) that the Mobile-Sierra presumption of lawfulness applied only to challenges from one of the parties to the contract and not to all other non-party challengers who, the lower court ruled, were entitled to a less-exacting standard of review.  Rejecting the DC Circuit’s holding as undermining the stability of contracts in energy markets, the Supreme Court’s NRG decision makes clear that the applicability of the Mobile-Sierra presumption to contract rates “does not depend on the identity of the complainant who seeks FERC investigation.”  NRG, slip op. at 10. (more…)

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld a U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) civil enforcement action against a New York Mercantile Exchange broker for “knowingly” manipulating settlement prices for electricity future contracts on behalf of Avista Energy, Inc. in 1998.  In DiPlacido the court lowered the CFTC’s penalty by one third, and affirmed the CFTC’s cease-and-desist order, registration revocation, and 20-year trading prohibition. (more…)