After nearly a decade of work, on September 19, 2019, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) endorsed its much anticipated Tropical Forest Standard (TFS). The TFS is a first-of-its-kind framework for assessing jurisdiction-scale offset credit programs that reduce emissions from tropical deforestation and degradation. It is widely expected to serve as a replicable model for adoption by other international greenhouse gas mitigation programs that utilize tropical forest reductions as offsets, including the International…

The FERC recently issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) to reform its regulations implementing the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), which encourages the development of certain small generation and cogeneration facilities.  PURPA and FERC’s rules implementing it over the years establish a number of benefits to those facilities and set obligations for electric utilities to purchase electricity from them.  FERC now concludes that, due to changes in the electric power industry…

Companies seeking approval for pipelines got some encouraging news from a Trump Administration proposal to cut back on states’ authority to block pipelines by withholding state water quality approvals, but environmentalists and states continue to express skepticism and are likely to sue. On August 22, the EPA proposed its Updating Regulations on Water Quality Certification  (“Proposed Rule”) to replace and update the existing water quality certification process under Section 401 of the Clean Water…

FERC has streamlined its rules so that generators in the organized markets operated by Regional Transmission Organizations (RTOs) and Independent System Operators (ISOs) no longer need to demonstrate a lack of horizontal market power in order to charge flexible market-based rates.  Instead, FERC will rely on existing market monitoring and mitigation measures in place in those markets to guard against exercises of market power.  This rule will be of interest to power generators; it will…

The Supreme Court’s much-awaited decision in Kisor v. Wilkie will have significant ramifications for the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and environmental law.  While the decision upheld the concept of Auer deference, which instructs courts to defer to agencies’ interpretations of their own regulations, it also imposed a number of limitations and restrictions on when Auer deference applies.  The decision leaves open many questions about what EPA guidance will qualify for Auer deference, and whether any…