In an October 12, 2012, filing with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, EPA told the Court it needs a year or more to finalize its pending regulations for coal combustion residuals (“coal ash”).  EPA’s filing resisted a lawsuit filed by environmental parties seeking to impose a six-month deadline for finalization of the coal ash regulations.

On July 10, 2012, the National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”) approved a staff report that faults both Enbridge Energy, Limited Partnership (“Enbridge”) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (“PHMSA”) for a 2010 pipeline rupture that spilled almost 850,000 gallons of crude oil in Marshall, Michigan. 

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory recently performed a modeling study aimed to quantify the total effect that increases in wind energy will have on pollutant emissions from an electric power system.  Although wind energy generation does not itself generate harmful emissions, wind is thought to have the potential to create a negative effect on emissions from the rest of the power grid as thermal power producers are required to adjust their output level in response to wind’s variability and unpredictability.

Peter Glaser, a partner in Troutman’s Washington, D.C. office, gave testimony last Thursday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in a hearing called to examine the Administration’s “all-of-the-above” energy policy.