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Interconnection customers:  be on notice.  Your interconnection agreement may not be just a transmission provider service agreement that allows your project to interconnect with the transmission system.  It may also be a rate schedule–your rate schedule–that you must file with FERC or suffer the consequences for violating the Federal Power Act.  

At…

Our firm today announced that Jon Wellinghoff, Chair of the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC), will join Stoel Rives LLP upon completion of his service at FERC. As many of our readers will recall, Jon submitted his resignation to the President on May 28, 2013. No date has been announced for his departure from FERC.

For…

This week the California Air Resources Board (ARB) released a draft of its AB 32 Climate Change Scoping Plan Update. The original Scoping Plan was adopted in 2008 and must be updated every five years. The Scoping Plan serves as a blueprint for achieving AB 32’s goal of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

The draft Update summarizes programs implemented over the last five years under AB 32 and outlines actions necessary to continue California’s progress toward the 2020 emissions reduction goal. The draft Update shows that California is on track to meet the 2020 emissions reduction goal and inventories the progress made across different economic sectors and programs like cap and trade. With the Update, ARB continues its strategy of achieving AB 32 goals through a mix of emissions reduction measures, including regulatory programs, incentives, and market-based approaches.Continue Reading California Air Resources Board Issues Draft Update to AB 32 Scoping Plan

On November 2, 2009, just one day after the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission’s (the “Commission’s”) final order in Minnesota Power’s 2008 rate case, Minnesota Power filed its largest petition ever to increase electric rates.  As part of its petition, and consistent with Minnesota law, Minnesota Power sought to impose interim rates – the rates Minnesota…

Over 40 percent of the lands in Malheur County have been designated as core habitat for sage grouse by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife ("ODFW"). Other counties in southeastern Oregon are also heavily affected. ODFW’s approach was to simply recommend against any development in core habitat, without consideration whether off-site mitigation could result…

A tentative ruling was issued yesterday in the related cases California Chamber of Commerce v. California Air Resources Board (ARB)  and  Morning Star Packing Co. v. ARB, pending before the Sacramento County Superior Court.  The cases challenge the legality of ARB’s cap and trade auctions under two theories:  (1) the cap and trade auctions…

As most of you are aware, Congress in the "American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012" eliminated the "placed in service" deadline for purposes of the renewable energy tax credits.  In its place, Congress required for purposes of the production tax credit (section 45) and the elective investment tax credit (section 48), that taxpayers "begin construction"…

On July 8, 2013, Xcel Energy Inc., submitted a filing with the SEC detailing an Administrative Law Judge’s decision in a pending electric rate case in Minnesota and calculating the decision’s impact on one of its subsidiaries. In November 2012, Northern States Power Company (NSP), a wholly owned subsidiary of Xcel Energy Inc., petitioned the Minnesota…

Last November, the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved Xcel Energy’s 2011-2025 Integrated Resource Plan and established various compliance filing requirements and deadlines. Pursuant to that November 2012 Order, the Commission directed Xcel to conduct a Life Cycle Management Study (“LCM Study”) examining the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of continuing to operate, retrofitting, or retiring Sherburne County…