A bipartisan group of US senators recently proposed legislation intended to broadly address electric vehicle (EV) fleet management, as both the federal government and the private sector continue adopting EV use at an unprecedented rate in the US market.
Power & Pipes
FERC, CFTC, and State Energy Law Developments
The US Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a major environmental case questioning the extent of the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
At the March open meeting, FERC issued an order extending the existing deadline for power sellers making sales above the energy price cap in the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) region. As a result of the order, sellers will have 30 days after the month in which the sales occurred to submit cost justification filings to FERC.
On March 24, FERC granted a public utility’s petition for declaratory order regarding the treatment of a master license agreement for communications equipment under the public utility’s previously approved revenue sharing mechanism (Revenue Sharing Mechanism).
US President Joseph Biden issued a directive to the secretary of defense on March 31, invoking the Defense Production Act (DPA) to spur the domestic production of critical minerals needed to produce large-capacity batteries for the automotive, emobility, and stationary electricity storage sectors.
In an order denying a request to waive filing requirements triggered by changes in ownership of qualifying facility (QF) projects, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission reiterated the importance of ensuring QF filings, specifically Form 556, are up to date.
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As part of a long-standing series of joint meetings, FERC and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) will be hosting a joint meeting on March 31, 2022. The meeting will address electric system reliability and nuclear plants, and will include presentations.
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) filed its 2022 NERC Standards Report, Status and Timetable for Addressing Regulatory Directives summarizing the progress made and plans for addressing the reliability standard-related directives issued by applicable governmental authorities. NERC reported that since March 29, 2021, the date of NERC’s last annual report, it filed petitions with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) addressing four reliability standards-related directives.
As anyone in the electric vehicle sector is aware, network charging infrastructure is a threshold issue to be addressed in order to get more electric vehicles (EVs) on the roads in US markets.