Energy Legal Blog

KeySpan Reaches $12 Million Antitrust Settlement Relating to Bidding Activity Previously Cleared by FERC

Sandy Rizzo — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 21:23:09 +0000

On February 22, 2010, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a Final Judgment relating to a settlement reached of a Department of Justice (“DOJ”) Complaint against KeySpan Corporation (“KeySpan”) regarding certain activity allegedly engaged in by KeySpan in the electric generating capacity markets in New York City (the [...]

White House Climate Change Guidance Will Affect Permitting and Infrastructure

Nick Kosar — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 23:12:44 +0000

Last week, the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) released a draft guidance describing how and when climate change considerations should factor into the environmental impact assessments that federal agencies prepare under the National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 The draft guidance is important for anyone proposing to build infrastructure, such as power plants, pipelines [...]

DOE’s First Nuclear Loan Guarantee: Harbinger of Things to Come?

Nick Kosar — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:16:42 +0000

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 [...]

Proposal Ratchets Down on Credit in Organized Wholesale Power Markets

Tracy Davis — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 18:11:05 +0000

FERC proposes to revisit credit practices and risk management for organized wholesale market in a January 21 rulemaking proposal. The seven proposed revisions across the board would reign in credit and reduce the default exposure of market operators beginning before the 2010-2011 winter-heating season. Public comment on the proposed revisions must be filed with the [...]

Administrative Judge Decision Explores “Subjective” Parameters of Unlawful Market Manipulation

Bill Wolf — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 20:52:39 +0000

Wending its way to FERC on exception (appeal) is Administrative Judge Carmen Cintron’s January 22 initial decision finding that lead natural gas trader for hedge fund Amaranth Advisors, Brian Hunter, manipulated the price of New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) natural gas futures contracts in order increase earnings on futures look-alike contracts (primarily swaps) that Amaranth [...]

Texas Survey Scrutinizes Emissions from Barnett Shale Oil and Natural Gas Production

Matt Armstrong — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:53:28 +0000

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) recently released its much anticipated Barnett Shale Formation Area Monitoring Projects survey. The survey arrives amidst increasing press coverage of the opportunities and challenges of energy development in the nation’s shale regions. Conducted over three months in the latter part of 2009, the survey focuses on characterizing air [...]

UPDATE: SEC Issues Written Guidance on Climate Change Disclosure

Kevin Ewing — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:06:07 +0000

On February 2, 2010, the SEC issued the written interpretive release that it approved last week to guide how public companies should evaluate the impacts of climate change in their communications with shareholders. As companies in the energy industry should note, the guidance does not change the existing principles of corporate disclosure, founded on an [...]

Wait for Important DOI Decisions on Offshore Energy Development Continues

Michael Olsen — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:30:25 +0000

At a recent energy industry forum, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar left few clues as to what the Administration would decide regarding the Department’s Five-Year Leasing Program for 2007-2012 and the draft 2010-2015 plan proposed by the outgoing Bush Administration that would greatly expand offshore leasing for oil and gas exploration and production. As Salazar put [...]

Divided SEC Adopts Guidance on Climate Disclosure, But Uncertainty Remains

Kevin Ewing — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:33:37 +0000

On January 27, by a vote of three to two, the SEC adopted new interpretive guidance on how public companies should evaluate the impacts of climate change in their communications with shareholders. Such guidance had long been sought by certain pension funds, shareholder advocacy groups and states, who were unsatisfied with the varied nature of [...]

FERC Proposes New Mechanism to Facilitate Investment in the Utility Sector

Sandy Rizzo — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:19:50 +0000

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Commission”) issued on January 21, 2010 a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) in Docket No. RM09-16 that would permit a new class of transactions to proceed without the need for a Federal Power Act Section 203 order. Comments on the proposal are solicited and will be due 60 days after [...]