On January 15, 2009, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) approved the Sparrows Point Project in Baltimore County, Maryland despite objections from Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff. The project includes a liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) terminal that will have a send-out capacity of 1.5 billion cubic feet per day and 88 miles of newly constructed natural gas pipeline.

On January 15, FERC issued an order approving a small solar thermal generating facility to be designated as a Qualifying Facility (“QF”) under section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (“PURPA”) despite the fact that portions of the same facility are at times used to generate electricity using natural gas.

On December 23, 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (“DC Circuit”) upheld FERC’s interpretation of the term “markets” as it applies to qualifying facility (“QF”) purchase exemptions found in the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (“PURPA”). The Petitioners, the American Forest and Paper Association (“AFPA”), argued that the term means only competitive markets.

On Thursday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or “Commission”) issued an order offering guidance (“Guidance Order”) on conducting compliance audits to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (“NERC”) and the eight regional entities (“Regional Entities”) with responsibility for enforcing reliability standards. The Guidance Order was released on the same day the Commission approved an audit report of SPP’s reliability functions.