Rulemakings

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On July 16, 2026, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) unanimously approved measures in two orders streamlining its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review procedures for certain hydropower-related actions with minimal environmental impacts.   In the first order, FERC issued a final rule that expands an existing Categorical Exclusion (CE)—a designation that allows an agency to skip preparing a detailed environmental review document—to cover Commission-initiated terminations and revocations of hydropower licenses and exemptions where there will be little to no ground disturbance and little to no change in reservoir conditions or downstream water flows.  In the second order, FERC adopted two recreation-related CEs implemented by Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that will allow FERC to skip detailed environmental review when authorizing small-scale recreation facility improvements, such as trails, fishing access sites, campgrounds, and parking areas, at FERC-licensed hydropower projects.

In her comments on the orders at the Commission’s July 16 open meeting, Chairman Swett stated that the Commission “must move important approvals forward quickly while ensuring we fully meet our NEPA obligations. Today’s actions are practical, common-sense solutions that streamline our hydropower environmental review process and allow us to better focus our efforts on reviewing large-scale projects.”

On July 16, 2026, FERC directed the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to file new or modified Reliability Standards to address reliability risks to the Bulk Power System associated with the integration of computational loads, revise its Rules of Procedure necessary for registration of computational load entities, and submit…

On April 24, 2026, FERC issued a Final Rule establishing a Producer Price Index for Finished Goods (PPI-FG) minus 0.55% for oil pipelines. The Commission set the revised PPI-FG for a five-year period, July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2031. In setting the revised index, FERC “trimmed” the utilized cost data to the middle 80% of cost changes, declined to incorporate certain Form 6 cost data that was resubmitted in 2025, and adjusted the page 700 data set to reflect the Commission’s return on equity (ROE) policy changes based on the 2020 index review. The Final Rule is effective June 29, 2026.

On March 19, 2026, FERC issued Order No. 919, which approved eleven proposed Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Reliability Standards, four new definitions, and eighteen proposed revised definitions to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) Glossary of Terms Used in Reliability Standards (NERC Glossary). FERC asserted that the new and revised definitions and new CIP Reliability Standards will support entities’ adoption of virtualization, which will improve the reliability of the Bulk-Power System against cyber security threats. NERC’s revisions will become effective the first day of the first calendar quarter that is 24 months after Order No. 919’s May 26, 2026, effective date, or April 1, 2028.

On January 15, 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the long-awaited proposed rule Updating the Water Quality Certification Regulations (Proposed Rule), which, if adopted, would largely reinstate the previous Trump administration’s 2020 Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification Rule (2020 Rule). EPA’s proposal seeks to limit the scope of state-issued water quality certifications (WQCs) under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to water quality impacts associated with discharges authorized by federal agency actions. The Proposed Rule also addresses concerns raised by applicants for federal licenses and permits (including for hydroelectric projects, natural gas pipelines, and other energy and infrastructure projects) that certain states have overstepped their Section 401 authority to impose onerous terms and conditions unrelated to water quality and artificially extended the statutory time limits for issuing WQCs.

On November 20, 2025, FERC terminated several long-pending rulemaking and policy dockets in an effort to provide “regulatory certainty.”  Specifically, FERC closed RM22-20, RM18-10, RM20-7, and PL20-7.

RM22-20 proposed requiring that any entity communicating with FERC or other specified organizations related to a matter subject to FERC’s jurisdiction submit accurate…

On November 20, 2025, FERC took several steps aimed at finalizing oil pipeline price index levels for the July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2026, time period (“2021-2026 Period”). First, FERC set the oil pipeline index level for the 2021-2026 Period at PP-FG+0.78% (“Initial Index”), consistent with the index level it originally set in December 2020. FERC also issued remedial relief through a rehearing order to applicable oil pipelines for the March 1, 2022, to September 17, 2024, time period in which an index level of PPI-FG-0.21% (“Rehearing Index”) was in effect. The relief ordered by FERC will allow qualifying pipeline to recover amounts they would have otherwise charged under the Initial Index while the Rehearing Index prices were in effect. Finally, FERC withdrew a Supplemental Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“Supplemental NOPR”) in which FERC sought to proactively set the Rehearing Index as the index level for the remainder of the 2021-2026 Period.

On October 7, 2025, FERC rescinded the regulation that precluded natural gas pipeline companies from receiving authorization to proceed with construction of their new projects during the period for filing requests for rehearing of certificate orders, or while rehearing is pending. In doing so, FERC stated that its rescission will…

On October 1, 2025, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a final rule revising 53 regulations to include conditional sunset provision in response to the April 2025 Executive Order titled “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy.” FERC, along with nine other agencies, was required to establish one-year…