Posts from — March 2011

On March 17, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”)  affirmed an original $80,000 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) proposed penalty against Turklock Irrigation District (“Turlock”) for an outage caused by vegetation management, specifically reviewing the Notice of Penalty (“NOP”) for FAC-003-1 R2 (see March 5, 2010 edition of the WER). [Read more →]

On March 10, 2011, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff sent letters to Senators Joe Lieberman (I–CT) and Susan Collins (R–ME), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and to Representatives Darrell Issa (R–CA) and Elijah Cummings (D–MD), the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, detailing the actions taken by FERC in response to cybersecurity concerns and challenges to the smart grid system.  [Read more →]

On March 16, 2011, the full House Energy and Commerce Committee passed Committee Chairman Upton’s (R-Mich.) bill designed to strip the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) of its rulemaking authority over greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions.  Committee Republicans and three Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), John Barrow (D-Ga.) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.), voted for the bill.  [Read more →]

On March 16, 2011, EPA released a new proposed Maximum Achievable Control Technology (“MACT”) standard to limit hazardous air pollutant emissions (also referred to as “toxics”) from all coal- and oil-fired power plants.  [Read more →]

On March 11, 2011, EPA proposed a new rule to defer, for a period of three years, greenhouse gas (“GHG”) permitting requirements for CO2 emissions from biogenic sources.  [Read more →]