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On December 18, 2014, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing modifications to Part 46 of its regulations regarding the reporting of a utility’s twenty largest purchasers.  The NOPR proposes to eliminate the need to file FERC-566 – an annual report that lists the reporting utility’s twenty largest purchasers – for certain public utilities.  In doing so, FERC stated that the NOPR would reduce the regulatory burden of filings while enhancing the quality of information collected.

On December 9, 2014, FERC announced that it would hold a series of technical conferences to discuss what implications are involved with a variety of compliance approaches used to satisfy the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan rule.  The technical conferences will begin on February 19, 2015 and generally focus on issues related to electric reliability, wholesale electric markets and operations, and energy infrastructure. 

On November 28, 2014, the Commission conditionally accepted PJM Interconnection’s (“PJM”) proposed modifications to several of the key pricing elements used to clear PJM’s capacity market auctions, subject to PJM making a compliance filing removing a proposal relating to location-specific price elements.  The Commission found that these changes were reasonably needed for PJM to achieve an acceptable level of reliability over the long-term.

On November 28, 2014, FERC approved a Stipulation and Consent Agreement (“Agreement”) between its Office of Enforcement (“Enforcement”), the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and the California Independent System Operator Corporation (“CAISO”) relating to the 2011 Southwest blackout in Southern California, Arizona and Northern Baja Mexico that affected 2.7 million customers.  Under the terms of the Agreement, CAISO will pay a combined civil penalty of $6,000,000, with $2,000,000 divided equally among NERC and the U.S. Treasury, and $4,000,000 invested in reliability enhancements measures.  CAISO also agreed to commit to mitigation and compliance measures, and to submit semi-annual compliance reports to Enforcement for at least one year.

On December 2, 2014, FERC authorized Constitution Pipeline Company, LLC (“Constitution”) to construct and operate its proposed approximately 124-mile-long, 30-inch diameter interstate pipeline, and related facilities, extending from Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, to a proposed interconnection with Iroquois Gas Transmission System, L.P. (“Iroquois”) in Schoharie County, New York (the “Constitution Pipeline”).  In the same order, FERC also authorized Iroquois to construct and operate compression facilities, and modify existing facilities, in the town of Wright, New York (the “Wright Interconnect Project”), and to lease the associated incremental capacity associated with the Wright Interconnect Project to Constitution.