FERC’s Office of Enforcement and Regulatory Accounting (Enforcement) has released its annual report on enforcement actions during fiscal year 2025, which ran from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. The report provides a comprehensive overview of Enforcement’s activities across the electric, natural gas, and oil pipeline industries.
Power & Pipes
FERC, CFTC, and State Energy Law Developments
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or Commission) on November 20, 2025 withdrew the Proposed Policy Statement on Waiver of Tariff Requirements and Petitions or Complaints for Remedial Relief (Proposed Policy Statement). The Commission’s policy will be to continue to grant tariff waivers on a case-by-case basis, consistent with its statutory authority and the language of the tariff in question.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on October 1, 2025 finalized a final rule under Docket No. RM25-14 to sunset dozens of existing regulations affecting the electric and natural gas industries. This regulatory action was taken pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 14270, Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy, issued on April 9, 2025, and is open for comment through November 20, 2025.
As 2025 approaches its last quarter, a look back at the electric vehicle (EV) market in the United States reveals an initially murky picture that is overshadowed by several recent developments boding well for EV market participants. Although the first several months of 2025 were littered with government actions that prompted some to predict the demise of the US EV market, more recent developments paint a different picture.
Recent actions by the US Department of Commerce (Commerce) signal growing trade enforcement momentum across critical segments of the clean energy supply chain. Through a combination of new investigations and preliminary determinations, the agency is expanding its scrutiny of imported materials such as polysilicon, solar modules, and battery components—all central to US decarbonization and domestic manufacturing goals.
In November 2023, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) issued a proposed policy statement to encourage Pennsylvania’s electric distribution companies (EDCs) to develop distribution and default service rate structures for electric vehicle (EV) charging customers. Following a review of comments submitted by stakeholders, on December 19, 2024, the PUC adopted a Final Policy Statement Order, which addressed those comments and included a final policy statement (Policy Statement). The Policy Statement became effective on February 15, 2025 following publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin.
President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) establishing the National Energy Dominance Council (Council) on February 14, 2025. The EO outlines the rationale for creating the Council, its members, and its primary functions.
Donald J. Trump became the 47th president of the United States on January 20. His second inaugural address focused significantly on energy policy, where he promised to declare a national energy emergency. Making America “energy dominant again” is the second of his four America First Priorities. President Trump’s energy policy aims to meet two of his goals: reducing energy costs as part of his plan to “defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices” and restoring American manufacturing.
On January 14, 2025, with just days remaining before a presidential administration change, President Joseph R. Biden issued an Executive Order on Advancing United States Leadership in Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure (EO) that directs federal government agencies to solicit proposals for the development of “frontier” artificial intelligence (AI) data centers on federal lands. While the EO remains for now, it could soon be rescinded by the new administration. Recognizing the substantial amount of energy infrastructure needed to train AI models, the EO is heavily focused on incentivizing the expeditious development of low or zero carbon energy resources to power these AI data centers. Set out below is a summary of key parts of the EO. Morgan Lewis’s data centers team is available to discuss the EO and assist with data center development and related issues.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the Commission) issued a notice of proposed rulemaking on September 19, 2024 to tighten its existing mandatory controls for certain electric assets. The proposal reflects FERC’s increasing concern that current controls are not up to the task of preventing bad actors from infiltrating the supply chain of critical electric infrastructure, thereby creating significant risk to electric system reliability.