On December 21, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) set forth its plans to amend the state’s clean air rules to adopt Low-Emission Vehicles (LEV) and Zero-Emission Vehicles (ZEV) standards, known as the Clean Cars Minnesota rule.  As described in MPCA’s Notice of Intent to Adopt Rules with a Hearing, the LEV standard would require automobile manufacturers to deliver for sale in Minnesota only those vehicles that can meet California’s more stringent greenhouse gas and other air pollutant emissions standards.  The ZEV standard would further require automobile manufacturers to deliver for sale in Minnesota a certain percentage of vehicles with no tailpipe emissions.  Automobile manufacturers could comply with the ZEV standard through the delivery of battery electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and hydrogen-fueled vehicles.  If approved, the rule would apply to new passenger cars and light trucks beginning in 2024.

The rule’s LEV standard will prohibit motor vehicle manufacturers from exceeding the fleet average non-methane organic gas plus oxides of nitrogen emission values and fleet average greenhouse gas emission values contained in the California Code of Regulations.  A vehicle manufacturer will have to submit an annual report to MPCA demonstrating that it did not exceed the fleet average emissions.
Continue Reading Minnesota drives forward with EV rules

Over the course of the next several months, participants that are actively engaged in project financing will need to begin thinking about how to manage the transition away from the London interbank offer rate (LIBOR, known as the “most important number in finance”).  LIBOR forms the basis for many financing agreements.  LIBOR is scheduled to…

On August 19, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a proposed decision accepting the 2019 Renewables Portfolio Standard Procurement Plans submitted by four new Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs): Butte Choice Energy Authority; Clean Energy Alliance; the City of Santa Barbara; and San Diego Community Power.  Each of these CCAs is anticipated to start providing…

On July 17, 2020, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California rendered its decision in U.S. v. California (Case 2:19-cv-02142-WBS-EFB), upholding the agreement between California and the Canadian Province of Québec that links California and Québec’s respective cap-and-trade programs.  In its opinion, the District Court rejected the federal government’s claim that the California-Québec agreement is preempted under the Foreign Affairs Doctrine.  The District Court ruled earlier this year on the federal government’s other claims, finding that the agreement did not violate either the Treaty or Compact Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.  With the decision on July 17, the California-Québec agreement will remain in place, allowing the two jurisdictions to continue to link their cap-and-trade programs.  The federal government has not yet stated whether it will appeal the District Court’s decision.
Continue Reading U.S. District Court Upholds California’s Cap-and-Trade Agreement with Québec

Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued Order No. 872 and implemented the largest overhaul to FERC’s regulations affecting Qualifying Facilities (QFs) in more than a decade.  The order itself is 491 pages in length and there remain plenty of details to unpack in its implementation (including future proceedings to come at the FERC…

On Friday, July 10, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (“D.C. Circuit”) upheld the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (“FERC”) Order Nos. 841 and 841A, which established a framework for electric storage resources’ (“ESRs”) participation in wholesale markets. The D.C. Circuit rejected the petitioners’ arguments that FERC exceeded its jurisdictional boundaries and…

On April 2, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) took several additional actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  These actions supplemented FERC’s previous actions on March 19.  In addition to the actions identified below, Chairman Chatterjee highlighted two additional procedural options for obtaining more formal enforcement or compliance-related guidance: standards of conduct waivers and no-action letters.  Two FERC staff task forces were created to expeditiously process standards of conduct waiver requests and no-action letters, and contact information is available for the appropriate staff on FERC’s website: here, here, and here.
Continue Reading FERC Takes Additional Actions to Address Coronavirus Pandemic

On March 19, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) announced several updates to their operations in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.  Chairman Chatterjee held a press conference and stated that FERC is fully functioning via the telework process and expects to continue to be able to complete its work considering matters…

On February 20, 2020, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)  unanimously approved a proposed rule that would revise certain reporting requirements for financially-settled offtake contracts that qualify as “swaps” under the Commodity Exchange Act (as amended by the Dodd-Frank Act), such as proxy revenue swaps, fixed-volume price swaps and certain virtual PPAs.  Many counterparties to…