On April 15, 2010, FERC issued an Order on Clarification denying a request that the Commission interpret its market-based rate affiliate restrictions to permit sharing of employees who are neither transmission function employees nor marketing function employees.  FERC also issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing a revision to the market-based rate affiliate restrictions to reflect the clarification provided in its Order on Clarification.

Last week, the EPA finally took action to clarify the application of the “Maximum Achievable Control Technology (“MACT”) Hammer” to vacated MACT standards.  The MACT Hammer is the provision that requires existing sources to develop case-by-case MACT limits for hazardous air pollutants if EPA misses its deadline for promulgating a generally applicable MACT standard. 

On April 5, 2010, the New York Independent System Operator (“NYISO”) released its annual New York State energy report, Power Trends 2010: New York’s Emerging Energy Crossroads (the “Report”).  The Report identified the key energy issues for New York along with several NYISO initiatives in place to address topics like energy efficiency, smart grid technology, renewable resource development, and transmission congestion. 

On April 5, 2010, Google Inc., the Climate Group and 45 other technology companies (collectively, the “Parties”) wrote a letter to President Barack Obama encouraging him to support the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by promoting ways for electric consumers to monitor and manage their energy consumption. 

On March 24, 2010, the House Energy and Environment Subcommittee unanimously voted to forward the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense (“GRID”) Act to full committee without any amendments.  The bipartisan bill would amend the Federal Power Act to give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) authority to issue emergency orders for utilities to take protective action when the president declares a grid security “threat.”

On March 25, 2010, Central Transmission, LLC (“Central Transmission”) filed a complaint with FERC against PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (“PJM”).  Central Transmission claims that PJM’s tariff is unjust, unreasonable and unduly discriminatory because it does not provide the same regulated, rate-based recovery provisions to new transmission developers as it does to incumbent Transmission Owners.