On April 20, 2009, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) claiming that unnamed power suppliers used a loophole in the Independent System Operator of New England’s (“ISO-NE”) market rules to receive $85.8 million in capacity payments while failing to deliver energy when called upon by ISO-NE. Blumenthal’s complaint asks the Commission to make the companies’ names public and to order them to disgorge their profits.

On Wednesday, FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff addressed a number of ongoing energy issues during a U.S. Energy Association forum, including his belief that renewable energy and demand-side management could significantly mitigate and perhaps eliminate the need for traditional baseload power plants. Additionally, Chairman Wellinghoff discussed the Commission’s ability to regulate carbon credit markets.

On April 16, FERC’s Office of Enforcement released its “2008 State of the Markets Report” on natural gas and electric market performance during the previous year. Generally, average electricity and natural gas prices in 2008 were substantially greater than prices in 2007 in almost every region of the United States.

On April 16, 2009, President Barack Obama and President Felipe Calderon announced that the U.S. and Mexico would strengthen cooperation to achieve a low carbon future and promote clean energy resources by establishing the U.S.-Mexico Bilateral Framework on Clean Energy and Climate Change (“Framework”). Both Presidents agreed that the two nations need to work together to obtain the common goal of addressing global warming.

EPA announced today that it proposes to make a finding that greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions endanger the public health and welfare. If, as widely expected, EPA finalizes that finding later this year, EPA will become legally obligated to regulate GHGs from a variety of stationary and mobile sources under the existing federal Clean Air Act (“CAA”).

On Thursday, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff presided over his first open meeting since President Obama designated him Chairman. As part of his opening remarks, Chairman Wellinghoff thanked his fellow commissioners and FERC staff for their dedication and hard work.

On Wednesday, the NERC Integration of Variable Generation Task Force (“IVGTF”) released a special report (“IVGTF Report”) detailing significant changes for system planning and operations to reliably integrate high levels of variable resources into the North American bulk power system.

On April 8, 2009, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) released a statement stating that although they are not aware of any known cyber attacks on the electric grid, cyber security is an area of concern for the organization. On the same day, the Wall Street Journal published an article finding breaches in the United States power grid by spies from China, Russia, and other countries.