Posts from — July 2011

On Thursday July 21, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”), the FERC voted 5-0 to issue a final rule on Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation by Transmission Owning and Operating Public Utilities, Order No. 1000 (“Order No. 1000”).  Commissioner Moeller issued a partial dissent to the Final Rule.  A more detailed summary of Order No. 1000 is available here.  [Read more →]

To the dismay of environmental groups, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) on July 13 declined to adopt a long-anticipated new method of setting a combined secondary national ambient air quality standard (“NAAQS”) for nitrogen oxides (“NOx”) and sulfur oxides (“SOx”) recommended by EPA’s Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (“CASAC”) and instead proposed a five-year study pilot research effort on the issue. [Read more →]

The U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce and Appropriations Committees passed a barrage of measures aimed at limiting environmental regulation by the EPA and U.S. Department of the Interior (“Interior”). [Read more →]

On July 19, 2011, FERC issued an order on Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, and found insufficient consensus to institute a rulemaking proceeding to adopt the five families of standards identified by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”) as ready for review by the Commission.  Section 1305(d) of the Energy Independence and Security Act (“EISA”) of 2007 directed the Commission to institute a rulemaking proceeding to implement standards and protocols to ensure smart grid functionality and interoperability in transmission of electric power and in electricity markets. [Read more →]

On Monday, July 11, 2011, Chesapeake Energy Corporation (“Chesapeake”) announced its plan to spend over $1 billion over the next 10 years in order to help spur the development and demand for domestic supplies of natural gas and oil. [Read more →]