On January 10, 2020, the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) published the long-awaited proposed rule to amend its regulations implementing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA).  The statute, sometimes pejoratively referred to as a “paper-tiger,” requires a federal agency to take a hard look at the environmental impacts of certain proposed projects, but does not mandate any particular outcome. Continue reading the full article here.…

On December 20, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) denied petitions for review of a series of FERC orders that exempted certain North Carolina transmission customers of Virginia Electric and Power Company (“Dominion”) from the incremental costs to underground certain transmission lines in the Virginia portion of the Dominion’s service territory.  The challenges were brought by certain Virginia transmission customers of Dominion Energy, which sought to overturn FERC’s determination…

On December 30, 2019, FERC accepted, subject to further compliance, revisions to PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) Price Responsive Demand (“PRD”) program to align the program’s rules and requirements with those applicable to supply-side “Capacity Performance Resources” participating in PJM’s capacity market. PJM previously submitted PRD revisions in February 2019, but FERC rejected PJM’s filing in a June 2019 order, on the basis that PJM’s proposed method for calculating the Nominal PRD Value—i.e., the MW amount…

On December 30, 2019, FERC accepted tariff revisions by the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) to apply three previously accepted-interim provisions designed to address the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility’s (“Aliso Canyon”) continued operational limitations and impacts on CAISO’s system.…