Developments in law and policy of energy, commodities and environment
Nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states and the District of Columbia announced this week a new regional initiative to cap and reduce greenhouse gas pollution from the transportation sector. Much remains to be decided before the program takes effect, however.
Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington D.C.[1] aim to…
Carbon pricing is seen by many as an effective means of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation. California and several Eastern states have enacted “cap and trade” emission allowance programs, which have forced generators in those states to pay a price for their CO2 emissions. With the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan not…
On November 13, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched its Cleaner Trucks Initiative (CTI), which will decrease nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions by updating the existing NOx standard for heavy-duty trucks. EPA’s announcement comes just as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) updated its Heavy-Duty On-board Diagnostic (HD OBD) requirements and prepares to…
On October 4, the U.S. Department of Transportation published Preparing for the Future of Transportation: Automated Vehicles 3.0 (“AV 3.0”), a policy vision statement that embraces automation as a critical tool to improve motor vehicle safety. AV 3.0 identifies several avenues to remove regulatory barriers to Autonomous Driving Systems (“ADS”), including potential changes to rules…
On June 19th, a group of diverse businesses from a variety of industries announced the formation of the Transportation Electrification Accord (“Accord”). This announcement signaled an increasingly firm consensus around the importance of open, resilient, and cooperative approaches to transportation electrification — and major companies and organizations, some of whom have not previously been active in…
On March 8-9, 2018, a bespoke group of approximately 200 leading entrepreneurs, investors and advisors focused on deploying and commercializing cutting edge technologies gathered in Monte Carlo from across the globe for the 11th annual CleanEquity® Monaco Conference. Complementing other plenary sessions and emerging company presentations, the conference initiated a new feature — Covington…
On April 6th, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) issued a Proposed Decision authorizing pilot testing for autonomous vehicles (AVs) in California. This action follows up on the California DMV’s permitting rules for AVs in California, which would have allowed driverless testing and deployment permits to issue as early as April 2 of this year.…
Under the Natural Gas Act (NGA), FERC certificates the construction and operation of pipelines to transport natural gas in interstate commerce if they are “required by the present or future public convenience and necessity.” For almost two decades, FERC has used a 1999 policy statement’s guidelines to evaluate whether new pipelines meet that statutory standard. …
Energy storage has frequently been cited as the critical missing link in an electric infrastructure designed to maximize the benefits of cheap, renewable energy. Because energy from the sun and the wind is inherently intermittent, it has not been able to satisfy a round-the-clock need for electricity. And in many places we’ve built more renewable…
This is the third and final of three posts on this blog providing short summaries of the generic electricity policy initiatives already teed up and awaiting possible action by the newly-constituted FERC. Together, these three posts describe initiatives that address fundamental market and resource issues spanning a broad range of FERC’s electricity authorities.
Today’s post…
