On March 18, 2010, FERC found New York State Electric and Gas Corp. (“NYSEG) and Rochester Gas and Electric Corp. (“RG&E”) must continue to buy excess output from a cogeneration facility owned and operated by Cornell University (“Cornell”).  As such, FERC’s ruling marked the first time that FERC has determined that a large qualifying facility (“QF”) does not have nondiscriminatory access to markets, in the wake of legislative changes included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

On March 23, 2010, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment held a hearing entitled “Oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission” to examine how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) is implementing its statutory duties and authorities.  The four current FERC commissioners testified at the hearing and then responded to questions from subcommittee members, including questions about transmission planning and cost allocation.

On March 18, 2010, FERC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NOPR”) proposing to improve competiveness in organized wholesale energy markets by compensating demand response resources (“DRRs”) based upon the Locational Marginal Price (“LMP”) in the appropriate Regional Transmission Organization (“RTO”) or Independent System Operator (“ISO”).

On March 18, 2010, FERC approved the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (“NERC”) plan to implement eight Critical Infrastructure Protection Reliability Standards, CIP-002-1 through CIP-009-1 (“CIP Standards”) by generator owners and operators of nuclear power plants in the United States (“Implementation Plan”).  NERC’s Implementation Plan was filed on January 19, 2010 as part of a compliance filing in response to FERC’s request for additional information on December 17, 2009.

On March 19, 2010, the United States Senate confirmed three nominees, George Apostolakis, William Magwood, and Bill Ostendorff, to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (“NRC”) by unanimous consent instead of a roll-call vote.  The three new commissioners will join sitting chairman Gregory Jaczko, a Democrat, and Republican Commissioner, Kristine Svinicki on the five-member agency.

March 29, 2010

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Department of the Interior (DOI) through the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and Department of the Army (DOA) through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), announced on March 24, 2010 the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the federal agencies to promote the development of hydropower.  Pursuant to the MOU, studies will be conducted over the next few years that may help industry determine which Federal dams and reservoirs would be best suited for non-Federal hydropower development.  The process will hopefully determine which sites will have the fewest roadblocks from stakeholders, including the federal dam owners themselves.  These studies may also lead to a determination of which projects can be most efficiently integrated into the grid. 

On March 11, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) released its Draft National Action Plan on Demand Response (“National Action Plan”).  Written comments, which will aid FERC in finalizing the National Action Plan, are due Thursday April 8, 2010.

A draft report issued this month by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) calls for substantially tightening air quality standards for fine particulate matter.  The report comes as EPA prepares to issue a draft proposal in November 2010 and a final rule in July 2011 for annual and 24-hour fine particulate matter standards.

On March 18, 2010, FERC approved Tres Amigas LLC’s (“Tres Amigas”) request to sell transmission service at negotiated rates, with conditions on anchor customers and initial capacity offerings. In a separate order, FERC declined the petition to disclaim jurisdiction over the transmission facilities that will interconnect the Tres Amigas project with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (“ERCOT”) transmission system in Texas.