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On March 18, 2011, California Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith issued a final statement of decision against the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”) that halted further implementation of greenhouse gas (“GHG”) regulations under Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (“AB 32”), until another “scoping plan” is completed.

On March 17, 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”)  affirmed an original $80,000 North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) proposed penalty against Turklock Irrigation District (“Turlock”) for an outage caused by vegetation management, specifically reviewing the Notice of Penalty (“NOP”) for FAC-003-1 R2 (see March 5, 2010 edition of the WER).

On March 10, 2011, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff sent letters to Senators Joe Lieberman (I–CT) and Susan Collins (R–ME), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and to Representatives Darrell Issa (R–CA) and Elijah Cummings (D–MD), the chairman and ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, detailing the actions taken by FERC in response to cybersecurity concerns and challenges to the smart grid system. 

On March 16, 2011, the full House Energy and Commerce Committee passed Committee Chairman Upton’s (R-Mich.) bill designed to strip the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) of its rulemaking authority over greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions.  Committee Republicans and three Democrats, Reps. Jim Matheson (D-Utah), John Barrow (D-Ga.) and Mike Ross (D-Ark.), voted for the bill. 

On March 15, 2011, the Commission issued Order No. 745, “Demand Response Compensation in Organized Wholesale Energy Markets” (“Order No. 745” or the “Final Rule”).  Order No. 745 required that organized wholesale energy markets administered by a Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”) compensate demand response resources at the market price for energy, or locational marginal price (“LMP”), if the demand resource is able to displace a generation resource in an RTO/ISO effort to balance supply and demand and when proscribed by a new “net benefits test.”