Energy Legal Blog

Last week, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a draft guidance describing how and when climate change considerations should factor into the environmental impact assessments that federal agencies prepare under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  The draft guidance is important for anyone proposing to build infrastructure, such as power plants, pipelines and large industrial facilities, since it will influence whether and under what conditions federal agencies  issue permits and other approvals.  Most federal approvals for large projects are subject to NEPA, which requires impact assessments as an aid to federal decision-making. (more…)

On February 16, 2010, President Obama announced that DOE had offered $8.3 billion in conditional commitments for loan guarantees for two new nuclear reactors to be built at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke, Georgia. This announcement came on the heels of the release of Obama’s FY 2011 budget which proposed tripling the current loan guarantee authority for nuclear projects. These two actions signal a renewed willingness on the part of the Administration to support nuclear power as an essential ingredient in the nation’s future energy supply. (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.

Following the creation of a task force to develop a national ocean policy (E&E News, June 12, 2009), the Obama administration has begun a nationwide tour of town hall-style listening sessions to further develop a framework for managing development and ecosystems in ocean waters.

The task force, led by White House Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley, aims to set policy on a number of key issues, including oil & gas and renewable energy development, the impacts of development on marine wildlife, river and coastal water pollution, and climate change challenges for coastal communities. The task force is following in the footsteps of two major national ocean commissions that recommended the creation of a national ocean policy five years ago. (more…)

The CFTC has taken the first steps toward possibly regulating carbon credits traded on the voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). The CFTC’s action is being closely watched because it comes at a time when Congress is still working on the details of a mandatory national cap-and-trade program — including its choice as to whether the CFTC or FERC should oversee carbon markets. (more…)

A relicensing proceeding that began in 1991 will continue for a few more years as the Second Circuit, in Green Island v FERC, sends the case back to the agency because FERC, in an apparently futile effort to speed up its process, closed the court house door on an intervenor in violation of its own procedural rules.  FERC rules require FERC to solicit interventions whenever there is a material amendment to the license application.  For initial licenses, there is an exception for a material amendment resulting from the applicant complying with the requests of resource environmental agencies.  But, citing FERC’s own regulations and rulemaking analysis, the Second Circuit ruled that this exception does not apply in relicensing.  Hence, when, as was the case in this relicensing proceeding, the applicant and the various resource agencies reach a settlement, FERC must determine whether that settlement results in a material amendment; if so, then the agency must solicit interventions.  FERC still has the option of determining that the settlement does not constitute a material amendment, but will have to make a finding to that effect before it can close the court house door a second time.  (more…)