US President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have consistently framed their policies with what they call the four major “crises” facing the nation: COVID-19, the economy, climate, and inequity. ...more
4/30/2021
/ American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 ,
Biden Administration ,
Climate Change ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Greenhouse Gas Emissions ,
Immigration Reform ,
Labor Reform ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Relief Measures ,
Renewable Energy ,
Tax Reform
The Biden-Harris administration announced its American Jobs Plan, a legislative framework laying out an ambitious $2 trillion investment in physical and human infrastructure, on March 31. The bulk of the proposed spending is...more
4/5/2021
/ Anti-Abuse Rule ,
Biden Administration ,
Broadband ,
Clean Energy ,
Climate Change ,
Corporate Taxes ,
Drinking Water ,
Electric Vehicles ,
Energy Efficiency ,
Energy Policy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Infrastructure ,
International Tax Issues ,
Investment Tax Credits ,
Job Creation ,
Joint Employers ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Oil & Gas ,
Power Grid ,
R&D ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Tax Reform ,
Unions
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced last week that it has obtained another admission from a trader of violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC regulations ...more
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) announced during its March 18 open meeting two recent actions to promote greater use of distributed energy resources and demand response. ...more
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced on February 22 that its Office of Enforcement would examine wholesale natural gas and electricity market activity during last week’s extreme cold weather ...more
2/24/2021
/ CFTC ,
Electricity ,
Energy Market ,
Energy Policy ,
FERC ,
Government Investigations ,
Infrastructure ,
Market Manipulation ,
Natural Gas ,
Oil & Gas ,
Price Gouging ,
Severe Weather ,
Wholesale
On February 17, Texas Governor Greg Abbott took the extraordinary measure of directing the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) to restrict out-of-state exports of natural gas produced in Texas through February 21. Noting the...more
After severe winter weather forced Texas into experiencing power outages and rolling blackouts, there will likely be resulting federal and state investigations into the outages, federal investigations into commodity and...more
2/18/2021
/ CFTC ,
Critical Infrastructure Sectors ,
Force Majeure Clause ,
Futures ,
Government Investigations ,
Natural Gas ,
NERC ,
Oil & Gas ,
Pipelines ,
Power Grid ,
Reliability Standards ,
Severe Weather ,
Storm Damage
A natural gas trader pleaded guilty in federal district court last week to conspiring to commit commodities fraud and wire fraud in an insider trading scheme over natural gas futures. His co-conspirator had pleaded guilty...more
2/12/2021
/ Anti-Manipulation Rule ,
CFTC ,
Commodities ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Fraud ,
Futures ,
Guilty Pleas ,
Insider Trading ,
Market Manipulation ,
Natural Gas ,
Oil & Gas ,
Wire Fraud
In an expected move, President Joe Biden has designated Commissioner Richard Glick as the new FERC Chairman. Chairman Glick takes over from Commissioner James Danly, whose term as Chairman lasted less than three months....more
The US Congress has adopted the first extensive update to US federal energy policies in over a decade in the Energy Act of 2020 (Energy Act), which President Donald Trump signed into law on December 27 as part of the...more
12/30/2020
/ Carbon Capture and Sequestration ,
Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) ,
Department of Energy (DOE) ,
Energy Policy ,
Energy Sector ,
Infrastructure ,
New Legislation ,
Nuclear Power ,
Popular ,
Power Grid ,
Renewable Energy ,
Tax Credits
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) proposed revisions to its Policy Statement on Natural Gas and Electric Price Indices (Policy Statement) on December 17 to encourage market participants to report transactions to...more
President-elect Joseph Biden announced on December 15 that he intends to nominate former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to serve as secretary of energy in his new administration. Ms. Granholm previous served as the...more
The US Department of Energy (DOE or Department) finalized a rulemaking proceeding last week that revises its National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) implementing procedures pertaining to certain authorizations under the...more
12/8/2020
/ Biden Administration ,
Department of Energy (DOE) ,
Energy Policy ,
Environmental Policies ,
Exports ,
FERC ,
Liquid Natural Gas ,
Natural Gas ,
Natural Gas Act ,
NEPA ,
Oil & Gas ,
Regulatory Reform
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or the Commission) Division of Enforcement filed the most enforcement actions in the Commission’s history in fiscal year 2020 (FY 2020). On December 2, 2020, DOE released its...more
The US Senate has confirmed the nominations of Mark Christie (R) and Allison Clements (D) to fill the remaining Republican and Democratic vacant seats on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. These confirmations restore...more
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) recently issued an interim report by CFTC Staff on the April 2020 price collapse of the West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude oil futures contract (WTI Futures Contract)....more
12/1/2020
/ Biden Administration ,
Capital Markets ,
CFTC ,
Commodities ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Crude Oil ,
Derivatives ,
Futures ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Infrastructure ,
Market Participants ,
Oil Prices ,
OPEC
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) Office of Enforcement (OE) issued its 2020 Report on Enforcement on November 19. The report provides a review of OE’s activities during fiscal year 2020 (FY...more
A recent report from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission encourages financial regulators to consider the risks climate change poses to the US financial system and includes recommendations for addressing these risks....more
Under Order No. 2222, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission hopes to “usher in the electric grid of the future” by opening wholesale markets to distributed energy resource aggregations. ...more
As New York seeks a path to achieving its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions goals, the New York Public Service Commission (NYPSC) recently approved an order authorizing New York’s electric utilities to spend up to $701 million...more
The latest action by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission dismisses an advocacy group’s request that FERC assert jurisdiction over net-metering transactions on procedural grounds, leaving important legal and...more
On July 10, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was well within its rights to prevent states from prohibiting energy storage resources from participating in wholesale...more
A decision by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit on June 30 rejected the near routine use by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission of tolling orders to prevent rehearing requests from being denied by operation of...more
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a notice on May 20 that it will convene a Commissioner-led technical conference to consider the ongoing, serious impacts that the emergency conditions caused by the...more
In response to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the Pipeline Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued a notice that it does not intend to...more