Inflation Reduction Act
New York DEC Issues Draft Hydraulic Fracturing Regulations
Last week, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation released its draft regulations for hydraulic fracturing. These are based on the agency's revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement issued last month. The proposed regulations include a prohibition on drilling...
Interior Department Proposes Guidelines for Protecting Wildlife from Wind Energy Development
Fossil fuels are under fire from opponents of hydraulic fracturing in the gas drilling process or, in coal's case, everything from mountaintop mining to mercury emissions. And now with the crisis in Japan, nuclear power is facing new challenges. Of...
SEC Proposes Rule Requiring Oil, Gas and Mining Companies to Disclose Payments to Governments
By Jonathan Halpern and Thomas Kokalas Under a rule proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, oil, gas and mining companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges would be required to disclose payments they made to foreign governments or the United...
DC Circuit Affirms FERC On Maintaining Price Caps On Gas Pipeline Capacity Sales
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...
Congress Proposes New Enforcement Authority for FERC
The American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009 ("ACES"), or H.R. 2454, is a comprehensive energy bill that was introduced on May 15, 2009. ACES contains new enforcement provisions that would significantly increase the authority of the Federal Energy...
Fate of Ocean Power Projects Requires FERC and Interior Cooperation
Jurisdictional jockeying between FERC and the Department of Interior threatens development of Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) ocean power projects. The issue calls out for agency cooperation and possibly an interagency agreement similar to that between FERC and the U.S. Forest...
Energy Beneficiaries of Economic Stimulus Package
The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008 embedded in the economic stimulus legislation (H.R. 1424) that President Bush signed into law on October 3, 2008, provides nearly $17 billion in various tax credits to promote clean power generation technologies...
CAIR Court Throws Eastern Utility Markets into Financial Tail-Spin
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit in a July 11 order threw eastern power markets into financial chaos by vacating the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). ( North Carolina v...
Texas Commission Selects Plan to Deliver Wind Power from Competitive Renewable Energy Zones
The Texas Public Utility Commission (PUCT) recently selected one of the four transmission scenarios that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) proposed for bringing a total of 18,456 MW of wind power from West Texas and the Texas Panhandle...
Energy Advisor to Coordinate State Energy Policy in Rhode Island
Rhode Island Governor Donald L. Carcieri (R) issued an executive order in mid-January creating the Office of Chief Energy Advisor to the Governor, and named Andrew Dzykewicz, Senior Project Manger at the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC) , to...