Mary-Kate Rigney

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On November 21, 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) issued a final rule establishing a categorical one-year “reasonable period of time” for certifying authorities to act on requests for water quality certification under section 401 of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). The final rule also clarifies that all FERC authorizations “that have the potential to discharge into waters of the United States,” including hydropower exemptions, amendments, and surrenders, require either a section 401 water quality certification or waiver thereof.

On July 30, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) issued an opinion vacating and remanding FERC’s order approving Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company’s (“Transco”) Regional Energy Access Expansion Project (“Project”) determining that FERC failed to consider environmental consequences and evidence suggesting…

On September 19, 2024, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) denied Enerwise Global Technologies, LLC’s (“CPower”) complaint against PJM Interconnection, LLC (“PJM”) alleging that PJM’s Open Access Transmission Tariff (“Tariff”) was unjust, unreasonable, and unduly discriminatory because it prevents Curtailment Service Providers (“CSP”) from using approved statistical sampling rules to…

On July 16, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) found that FERC failed to adequately consider a liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) project’s greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions and failed to properly assess the cumulative effects of the LNG project’s nitrogen dioxide (“NO2”) emissions. While the D.C. Circuit remanded to FERC for further consideration, it did so without vacatur.

On July 9, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) declined to stay a new Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) rule that seeks to limit methane emissions in the oil and gas industries (“Methane Rule”), thereby allowing the Methane Rule to remain in effect while litigation proceeds.

On June 14, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) denied Food & Water Watch’s environmental challenges to the FERC’s order granting a certificate of public convenience and necessity (“CPCN”) to Tennessee Gas Pipeline Company (“Tennessee Gas”) for its East 300 Upgrade Project (“Project”).

On May 23, 2024, FERC issued an Order denying Lackawanna Energy Center LLC’s (“Lackawanna”) complaint against PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”) alleging that PJM failed to reimburse Lackawanna for lost opportunity costs (“LOC”) incurred following allegedly improper curtailment orders from PJM during a 2023 transmission line outage.  Lackawanna argued that PJM’s curtailment of its generation output violated the Federal Power Act and the PJM Tariff, which typically allow for LOC payments when generator output is reduced due to transmission constraints or reliability issues.  FERC dismissed all claims raised in the complaint.

On April 18, 2024, Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) introduced the Making Pipelines Accountable to Consumers and Taxpayers Act (“MPACT Act”) (S. 4171) that, if adopted, would grant FERC authority to order refunds under section 5 of the Natural Gas Act (“NGA”). Specifically, the MPACT Act amends section 5 of the NGA to give FERC authority to order a pipeline to issue retroactive refunds for charges FERC determines are unjust and unreasonable. The MPACT is intended to align FERC’s authority over the gas and electric industries and protect customers from unjust and unreasonable rates. At this time, a companion bill has not been introduced in the House of Representatives.

On March 28, 2024, the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, Inc. (“MISO”) submitted a filing to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC”) proposing revisions to its Open Access Transmission, Energy and Operating Reserve Markets Tariff (“Tariff”) to implement a direct loss of load (“DLOL”) based accreditation methodology.  The DLOL methodology will be used to accredit resources for MISO’s annual Planning Resource Auction and to determine a load serving entity’s resource adequacy for each season during the applicable year.  According to MISO, the proposal will better account for how different resources bolster grid reliability during stress periods.  MISO requests that the tariff revisions take effect on September 1, 2024.

Executive Summary

On March 21, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) issued Order No. 2023-A (Final Rule), which reaffirmed aspects of Order No. 2023 — the Commission’s landmark order updating its generator interconnection procedures. As detailed further in this summary, the Commission largely upheld Order No. 2023, including some of the more controversial aspects of the order, such as penalties and the transmission capacity “heat map,” and provided further clarity on other aspects.