On December 4, 2023 the CFTC issued proposed guidance regarding the listing of voluntary carbon credit ("VCC") derivative contracts ("Proposed Guidance"). The Proposed Guidance outlines factors that designated contract...more
Load management is a hot topic these days, as grid managers struggle to satisfy growing energy demand in the face of steadily intensifying seasonal weather patterns. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration,...more
The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA) signed by President Biden on August 16, 2022, features $369 billion of incentives to dramatically reduce U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Future blog posts will analyze individual...more
8/22/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Climate Change ,
Energy Tax Incentives ,
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ,
Investment Tax Credits ,
Production Tax Credit ,
Renewable Energy ,
Renewable Energy Incentives ,
Solar Energy ,
Tax Credits ,
Wind Power
On June 30, the last day of an historic term, the Supreme Court issued its decision in West Virginia v. EPA. As expected, the Court struck down EPA's 2015 Clean Power Plan (CPP), which was intended to reduce greenhouse gas...more
On Monday, December 20, 2021, for the second time in three years, the Washington State Legislature sued Governor Inslee over his line-item vetoes related to climate change policy. ...more
Companies looking to reduce their climate impacts and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions use a variety of tools to do so: buying renewable electricity (especially solar and wind); improving the efficiency of energy-hungry...more
On the day after his inauguration, President Biden designated Commissioner Richard Glick as the new Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Chairman Glick, a Democrat, joined FERC in 2017, bringing...more
2/18/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Clean Energy ,
Climate Change ,
Energy Sector ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
FERC ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Natural Gas ,
Oil & Gas ,
Utilities Sector
On May 1, 2020, President Trump signed an Executive Order on “Securing the United States Bulk-Power System,” reflecting the administration’s larger concern over national security risks from foreign participation in key U.S....more
With recent action by the Washington State Supreme Court, carbon trading is coming soon to the Evergreen State—though on a much more limited basis than Governor Jay Inslee and the State Department of Ecology had hoped....more
On Monday—Earth Day—the Washington Legislature’s final passage of three bills put an exclamation point on a string of significant climate and energy legislation....more
The Washington State Legislature is completing work on major legislation that would require the state’s electric utilities to eliminate all greenhouse gas emissions from their generating fleet within the next quarter century....more
The Juliana v. U.S. climate change litigation (better known as part of the Children’s Climate Crusade) is back in the spotlight. The case was filed in Oregon U.S. District Court in 2015 on behalf of future generations to...more
By refusing to hear an appeal from Exxon Mobil, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to protect the oil giant from handing over decades of climate change-related documents to the Massachusetts Attorney General....more
Last Friday, the D.C. Circuit torpedoed a hydroelectric license issued in 2013 to Alabama Power Company because the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) “declined to...more
In 2015, the Washington Legislature failed to act on Governor Jay Inslee’s cap-and-trade proposal to limit the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Since then, all branches of Washington State government, as...more
In recent years, Maryland attempted to subsidize new power plants by guaranteeing prices for generating capacity at wholesale auctions administered by PJM Interconnection L.L.C. (PJM). Tuesday, the Supreme Court unanimously...more
4/22/2016
/ Abusive Acts ,
Damages ,
Electricity ,
Exclusive Jurisdiction ,
Federal Power Act ,
FERC ,
Franchise Tax Bd of Cal v Hyatt ,
Full Faith and Credit Clause ,
Hughes v Talen Energy ,
Jurisdiction ,
Preemption ,
SCOTUS ,
State Taxes ,
Subsidies
On December 4, 2015, President Obama signed into law the “FAST Act”—short for Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act. Though primarily a highway bill, the FAST Act also includes energy security amendments to the Federal...more