From my colleague Alex Mertens:
On July 23, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law a bill which amends the state’s solar energy incentive program in an effort to stabilize the market for solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) and support the development of solar projects within the state. Key features of the law
As my colleagues Kristen Castaños and Melissa Foster posted on the Stoel Rives California Environmental Law Blog, the U.S. Department of the Interior announced today that it will publish the Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (“Solar PEIS”) for solar energy development in six southwestern states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Solar PEIS is a major step forward in the permitting of utility-scale solar energy on public lands in the West.
The Solar PEIS will establish solar energy zones with access to existing or planned transmission and with the fewest resource conflicts and provide incentives for development within those zones. The roadmap set forth in the Solar PEIS will make for faster, more streamlined permitting of large-scale solar projects on these public lands. The focus of the Solar PEIS is on Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) lands that are most suitable for solar energy development. It identifies 17 Solar Energy Zones (“SEZs”), totaling about 285,000 acres of public lands, as priority areas for utility-scale solar development. The Solar PEIS also notes the potential for additional zones through ongoing and future regional planning processes and allows for utility-scale solar development on approximately 19 million acres in variance areas lying outside of identified SEZs.Continue Reading U.S. Department of Interior Moves to Streamline Solar Development in the West
El Paso Electric (“EPE”) is seeking to pre-qualify interested parties capable of providing renewable energy services (including design, installation, commissioning, operation, maintenance, and ownership) of a 20 MW solar photovoltaic project that is expected to be located within the Fort Bliss military reservation in El Paso, Texas. EPE published a Request for Statement of Qualifications (“SOQ”)
Today, at the HydroVision International conference in Louisville, Kentucky, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management ("BOEM") and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") announced the publication of revised guidelines for potential marine and hydrokinetic ("MHK") developers interested in pursuing technology testing and commercial project development on the outer continental shelf (the "OCS"). The revised guidelines
Stoel Rives congratulates the members and staff of the National Hydropower Association ("NHA") who worked hard to achieve last night’s 372-0 passage of HR 5892, the Hydropower Regulatory Efficiency Act of 2012, in the U.S. House of Representatives. While there is still work to be done in the Senate, the unanimous vote in the House
Our San Diego office has relocated to a larger space and is expanding the range of legal services we offer in Southern California.
Please make note of our new address, effective today, July 2, 2012:
Stoel Rives LLP
12255 El Camino Real, Suite 100
San Diego CA 92130
Phone numbers and email addresses remain
Our colleague Tom Wood has prepared a helpful summary of the DC Circuit opinion, released this morning, that upheld the EPA’s approach to regulating greenhouse gases under the major new source review program, the Title V program and the vehicle emission standards program.
The lawsuit had challenged three separate rulemakings: (1) EPA’s “Endangerment Finding” in
Today was a big day for variable energy resources and energy storage at FERC’s open meeting.
Continue Reading A Big Day at the FERC Open Meeting
Stoel Rives is honored to have been named the top partner in the Professional Counselors and Services category by the readers of Biofuels Digest, the most widely read daily news digest in the biofuels industry. Biofuels Digest Publisher Jim Lane and his team produce a great on-line magazine and some of the best conferences
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