Legal & Regulatory

Following up on a similar decision in Maryland last month, a federal court threw out New Jersey’s attempt to spur construction of new power plants outside of PJM’s capacity auctions, saying that it was an unconstitutional state attempt to interfere with the wholesale power market. New Jersey’s Long-Term Capacity Pilot Project (LCAPP), enacted in 2011, […]

With the recent push for the regulation of carbon dioxide emissions from new and existing power plants (see “Turning the Heat Up on Carbon Emissions” in the October 2013 issue of POWER), the science behind this action needs to be revisited. The regulation of carbon dioxide emissions will apply to all fossil fuel energy sources; […]

The cost of producing electricity by natural gas and coal finished 2012 in a dead heat and future cost trends are very difficult to predict. One can read the projections (not predictions) by the U.S. Energy Information Administration and find evidence that coal is disadvantaged based on the rising cost of environmental compliance but the […]

A federal court on Sept. 30 shot down Maryland’s drive to spur construction of a new combined cycle power plant outside of PJM’s capacity auctions. Ruling in favor of various entities that had sued to block the plan, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland found that the state’s order last year for […]

An abundance of North American natural gas, coupled with high foreign demand, has sparked interest in exportation of natural gas. However, liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities are controversial. Some

Energy-hungry India’s power sector is financially hemorrhaging due to a number of critical issues relating to the availability of coal and gas, its loss-making state power distribution companies, and costly

U.S. states vary widely on how they are regulating the booming business of producing natural gas from shale formations, according to a study released this summer by the Washington environmental think tank Resources for the Future (RFF). “As the shale gas boom has taken off,” says RFF, “states have updated their regulations, each with varying […]

The state of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Gas and Electric (OG&E) on Tuesday asked the full 10-judge panel at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals to review their challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) implementation of a regional haze rule to limit emissions from power plants in the state. The move follows a decision by […]

In March 2013, and for the first time in the 35-year history of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) initiated an enforcement action in