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On March 5, 2010, FERC approved a settlement order under which the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council, Inc. (“FRCC”) will pay a $350,000 civil penalty for its part in the February 26, 2008 power outage in southeastern Florida. This is the first time that a regional reliability entity has been fined for violating a mandatory reliability standard.

On March 5, 2010, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied rehearing en banc of its decision in Connecticut v. American Electric Power to allow nuisance claims against emitters of greenhouse gases (GHG).  The 2nd Circuit’s decision comes approximately one week after the 5th Circuit announced it will reconsider its October ruling, Comer v. Murphy Oil, which had also allowed individuals to sue large emitters of GHG for damage caused by climate change. A third tort case based on GHG emissions, Native Village of Kivalina v. Exxon Mobil Corp., is still pending in the Ninth Circuit.  A more complete discussion of these cases may be found here. 

On March 9, 2010, the Supreme Court of Wyoming ruled that Basin Electric Power Cooperative can continue with construction of its new Dry Fork Station coal-fired power plant near Gillette, Wyoming.  Finding that the state did not have to require best available technologies for controlling carbon dioxide emissions, the court rejected a challenge to the state-issued air permit brought by Earthjustice on behalf of the Powder River Basin Resource Council and the Sierra Club.

On February 22, 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) announced that it will begin to phase in permit requirements and regulation of greenhouse gases (“GHG”) for large stationary facilities at the start of 2011.  Currently the EPA is scheduled to take action on its first round of GHG regulations under the Clean Air Act (“CAA”) around April 1, 2010. 

On March 1, 2010, Larry Parkinson started work as the new director of the Division of Investigations at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”).  As Director of Investigations, Mr. Parkinson will report to Norman Bay, the head of FERC’s Office of Enforcement.

On February 24, 2010, the Department of Energy’s (“DOE”) Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (“Berkeley Lab”) released their report Exploration of Resource and Transmission Expansion Decisions in the Western Renewable Energy Zone Initiative.  The analysis found that $22-$34 billion is needed to build transmission infrastructure in order to meet the West’s 33% renewable energy target.

On February 18, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) issued an order granting Google Energy LLC (“Google Energy”) market-based rate authority effective February 23, 2010, finding that Google Energy meets the criteria necessary for a Category 1 seller in all regions.

On February 24, 2010, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”) issued an order that simultaneously filed and settled charges against UBS AG (“UBS”) for exceeding the New York Mercantile Exchange’s (“NYMEX”) position limits on certain natural gas, heating oil and platinum futures contracts.  Under the accepted Offer of Settlement, in which UBS does not admit or deny the CFTC’s findings, UBS agrees to pay a civil monetary penalty of $130,000.