On December 24, 2009, the United States Senate confirmed the nomination of John Norris, a Democrat, as commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”).

On December 18, 2009, FERC conditionally approved PJM Interconnection, L.L.C.’s (“PJM”) Order No. 719 compliance filing, which contained proposed revisions to the PJM tariff regarding organized wholesale electricity markets.  The Commission also clarified the market power mitigation roles of PJM and Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitoring unit (“MMU”), in the order.

On January 5, 2010, FERC rejected the Army Corps of Engineers’ (the “Army Corps”) petition for rehearing as untimely and upheld its ruling that the Corps must comply with mandatory standards developed by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”). 

On December 17, 2009, regulators of Energy Corp.’s retail operations announced the formation of the Entergy Regional State Committee (“E-RSC” or “Committee”), comprised of regulators from the Arkansas Public Service Commission, Louisiana Public Service Commission, Mississippi Public Service Commission, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the City of New Orleans’ City Council.

On December 17, 2009, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) released an order (“Enforcement Order”) that authorizes the Secretary of the Commission to issue a Staff’s Preliminary Notice of Violations (“Notice”) after the entity that is subject to an investigation has been given the opportunity to respond to staff’s preliminary findings.  Additionally, the Commission released a Policy Statement where the Office of Enforcement (“OE”) will provide exculpatory evidence to those entities subject to their investigations and respondents in administrative enforcement proceedings. 

On November 24, FERC approved six Reliability Standards, which mandate the methods transmission owners must use to calculate Available Transfer Capability (“ATC”).

On December 10, 2009, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff testified on the technical issues related to integrating energy storage into the electricity grid at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. 

On December 3, 2009, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) denied Clipper Windpower Development Company, Inc.’s (“Clipper Windpower”) emergency motion and request for temporary waiver of part of the California Independent System Operator Corporation’s (“CAISO”) Large Generator Interconnection Procedures (“LGIP”).  In its motion, Clipper Windpower argued that the current security deposit requirements within CAISO’s LGIP would force it to post a $7.5 million deposit for upgrades that would cost approximately $4.6 million.