Energy Policy

Subscribe to Energy Policy via RSS

Last week the White House issued an Executive Order calling for 40 GW of new CHP capacity by 2020:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/30/executive-order-accelerating-investment-industrial-energy-efficiency

The Executive Order on Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency (also known as combined heat and power (CHP) or cogeneration) calls for federal agencies (including the Departments of Energy, Commerce and Agriculture), States, industrial companies…

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, sometimes a chairman’s mark will change just before the committee marks up legislation.  Chairman Baucus’s did.  Here is a description of the now-included PTC/ITC proposal:

Description of Proposal

 The proposal extends and modifies the expiration dates for the renewable electricity production credit and the 30-percent investment credit …

Earlier today, I reported that Senators Baucus and Hatch had agreed on a proposal to extend a package of expiring provisions.  Details of that package have now been released here:

https://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=startdown&id=4480

Unfortunately, it appears that extension of the PTC was not included.  This does not preclude the Senate Finance Committee from adding it during its…

Senators Max Baucus and Orrin Hatch, chairman and ranking member respectively, of the US Senate Finance Committee, have just announced that they have reached agreement on legislation to extend certain expiring tax provisions.  The bill will be marked up by the Finance Committee on August 2.

The details of the proposal have not been announced. …

An update from Marcus Wood, Jennifer Martin & Jason Johns:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) regulations provide that, for purposes of calculating a qualifying facility’s net capacity, generating facilities are considered together as a single qualifying facility if they are located within one mile of each other, use the same energy resource, and are owned by the same persons or their affiliates. In recent years, landowners and energy purchasers have disputed whether the location of generating facilities more than one mile apart is a "safe harbor," ensuring that the facilities will be treated as separate qualifying facilities, or is instead a rebuttable presumption that may be challenged. In its Order Denying Rehearing, issued June 8, 2012 in Docket Nos. EL11-51-001, QF10-649-002, and QF10-687-001, FERC reaffirmed that the one-mile separation standard provides a safe harbor for establishing separate qualifying facilities.Continue Reading FERC Confirms That Its “One-Mile” Rule is a Safe Harbor for Establishing Separate Qualifying Facilities

From our colleague Wayne Rosenbaum:

As Juliet Cho blogged about in our California Environmental Law blog, California Governor Jerry Brown  signed the Jobs and Economic Development through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011 (also known as AB 900) into law last September. The law aims to provide an incentive for applicants to move forward…

Yesterday the EPA released the third major Notice of Violation (“NOV”) against a biofuel producer in the past six months under the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”). The NOV states that EPA has determined that Green Diesel, LLC of Houston, Texas, generated 60,034,033 invalid Renewable Identification Numbers (“RINs’) with a current market value of perhaps $85 million. Coming on the heels of the resolution of the Clean Green Diesel and Absolute Fuels NOVs, this NOV is likely to trigger immediate market reaction.
Continue Reading EPA Releases Green Diesel Notice of Violation

In October 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order No. 755, which requires regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs) to pay for frequency regulation services based on the actual amount of service provided in response to actual or expected frequency deviations or interchange power imbalances.  The order directs RTOs…