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On October 8, 2009, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement (the “Agreement”) between the Office of Enforcement, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”), and Florida Power and Light Company (“FPL”).  Under the Agreement, FPL agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty to resolve an investigation into whether FPL violated Reliability Standards associated with a Florida blackout on February 26, 2008.

            On September 25, the United States Environmental Protection Agency Appeals Board (“Appeals Board”) in granting a request by the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) to voluntarily remand to the agency a permit it issued under the Clean Air Act for a major coal-fired power project southwest of Farmington, New Mexico, determined that the developer must consider Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (“IGCC”) technology as a potential alternative in its analysis of Best Available Control Technology (“BACT”).

          On September 29, 2009, Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and John Kerry (D-MA) released their 821-page draft climate bill, the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act”.  The Boxer Bill’s climate change cap-and-trade provisions parallel the legislation by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) which the House of Representatives passed in June.  There are, however, significant differences. 

On September 30, 2009, EPA issued two new proposals on the road to regulating greenhouse gases (“GHGs”) under the federal Clean Air Act (“CAA”).  Coming on the heels of the release of the Boxer-Kerry draft climate change legislation, both proposals are fraught with legal and policy uncertainty and may further complicate an already complicated regulatory environment. 

On September 24, 2009, former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”), Joseph Kelliher spoke about the Commission’s enforcement program at Infocast’s FERC Compliance Summit.  Kelliher stated that the enforcement program was young, and has laid a “good foundation.”  However, Kelliher believes there is still room for improvement.