At the end of last week, the District Court for the District of Columbia ordered EPA to release a new national ambient air quality standard for particulate matter (“PM”) by this Thursday, June 7th.  The decision appears to reflect frustration by the court at EPA’s reluctance to meet deadlines for the release of new rules required by the Clean Air Act.  With less than a week to go, and the proposed standards still under review by the White House, EPA will have to move faster than ever to comply with the order or develop yet another creative means of buying itself more time.

On May 23, 2012, Staff from FERC’s Office of Enforcement submitted a response to supplement the record in its financial performance audit of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and refuted claims by NERC that Staff “refused to meet with NERC” and “failed to act in good faith.”  FERC Staff also contested NERC’s claims that Enforcement did not provide an opportunity to review revised recommendations. 

On May 24, 2012, FERC issued an order approving a stipulation and consent agreement between FERC’s Office of Enforcement, Vista Energy Marketing, L.P. (“Vista”) and Michael P. Whalen, Jr.  The order provides for a civil penalty of $350,000 for what the Commission called a “reckless violation” of a prior Commission order.

On May 22, 2012, FERC issued an order allowing Rock Island Clean Line LLC (“Rock Island”), a subsidiary of Clean Line Energy LLC, to allocate up to 75 percent of its planned capacity on a proposed transmission line to anchor customers before conducting an open season for the remaining capacity.  However, in the same order, the Commission denied Rock Island’s request to favor renewable energy projects for the remaining quarter of transmission capacity on the proposed line. 

On May 15, 2012, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) filed a request for rehearing of a May 4, 2012 letter order issued by the Director of FERC’s Office of Enforcement accepting a contested audit report critical of NERC (“May 4 Letter Order”).  NERC noted that the FERC audit report contained “so many errors that it is difficult to understand the Office of Enforcement’s position on a wide range of matters.”

On May 17, 2012, FERC instituted an investigation pursuant to section 206 of the Federal Power Act (“FPA”) regarding the protocols used by transmission owners in the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator’s, Inc. (“MISO”) when calculating their annual formula transmission rates.  The investigation centers around whether the formula rate protocols used by MISO and transmission owners in the region are sufficient to ensure just and reasonable rates.