On March 11, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) released its Draft National Action Plan on Demand Response (“National Action Plan”).  Written comments, which will aid FERC in finalizing the National Action Plan, are due Thursday April 8, 2010. [Read more →]

On March 18, 2010, FERC adopted a Policy Statement on Penalty Guidelines for its enforcement program (“Policy Statement”), a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (“NOPR”), and a series of orders intended to address the reliability of the bulk power system. [Read more →]

A draft report issued this month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) calls for substantially tightening air quality standards for fine particulate matter.  The report comes as EPA prepares to issue a draft proposal in November 2010 and a final rule in July 2011 for annual and 24-hour fine particulate matter standards. [Read more →]

On March 18, 2010, FERC approved Tres Amigas LLC’s (“Tres Amigas”) request to sell transmission service at negotiated rates, with conditions on anchor customers and initial capacity offerings. In a separate order, FERC declined the petition to disclaim jurisdiction over the transmission facilities that will interconnect the Tres Amigas project with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”) transmission system in Texas. [Read more →]

In July 2009, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, (D-NM), introduced a bill, the “American Clean Energy Leadership Act,” which would allocate costs for new transmission and bar FERC from assigning the cost of a transmission project to a region or “sub-region” unless FERC can prove the costs are “reasonably proportionate to measureable economic and reliability benefits.” [Read more →]