Legal & Regulatory

All of our legal column writers have this issue off (they’ll be back in the March issue), so we are using this opportunity to invite readers to share their legal and regulatory (L&R) concerns.

Despite high-powered congressional legislation in 2005, the U.S. is still unable to site high-voltage interstate transmission lines in a timely fashion. Two new reports suggest ways out of the gridlock.

As mergers and acquisitions in the power sector heat up again, questions arise about how employee benefits are affected by these complex business deals.

In November, California voters overwhelmingly rejected an initiative that would have put the brakes on AB 32, the state’s ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction law. Given the role that California has played in climate change policy, that such a vote took place only four years into the law’s implementation process and 10 years before the emissions reduction targets were to be met was a reality check on climate change policy for those on both sides of the issue.

Feed-in tariffs (FITs) have been used by European countries to foster the growth of renewable generation resources, notably solar. These tariffs generally require electric distribution companies to purchase power produced by a specified class of generators at above-market rates. The object of the tariffs is to encourage development of the favored generation resources by ensuring the existence of a profitable market for their power production.

Much like the shape-shifting substance it regulates, the mercurial enforcement rule that governs mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants has changed unpredictably several times in recent years.

Despite a trendy moniker and lots of hype and interest, the smart grid has been facing some major setbacks of late, as regulators and customers begin challenging some of the claims for what interconnected smart meters will deliver in the way of tangible benefits.

The prospects of a worldwide nuclear power renaissance have spawned many plans for increasing uranium enrichment capacity. Could those plans swamp the world in SWUs?

A sea change in thinking about how to deal with spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. appears to be on the policy and political horizon, rekindling battles last fought in the 1980s about how to pay for the disposal of nuclear waste and where to put it. Holes in the ground look increasingly unlikely.

Here’s how, with almost no attention, recent financial reform legislation changes how business must deal with whistleblower employees and affects other seemingly nongermane issues.