Regulatory

In the opening weeks of the California state legislature, proposals have surfaced with a clean energy emphasis, promoting renewables and alternative transportation fuel use. One proposal also would seek to mandate that the state’s two public employee retirement funds divest interests in coal companies.

Six years after FERC granted Orbit Gas Storage a certificate of public convenience and necessity for construction and operation of a proposed underground natural gas storage facility in Hopkins County, KY, the company has asked the Commission to vacate the certificate due to changed market conditions.

A Democratic North Dakota legislator is fighting an uphill battle, pushing a bill (SB 2366) in the Republican-controlled legislature to reorganize the state’s regulatory oversight of the oil and natural gas sectors.

Rapid City, SD-based Black Hills Corp. is developing a program for some of its utilities in seven states to initiate ratepayer purchases of natural gas reserves from its exploration and production (E&P) segment.

Oregon lawmakers are considering a proposal (SB 477) that would outlaw the use of coal-fired electric generation or the purchase of coal-fired power supplies by 2025. Natural gas-fired generation would specifically be prohibited from replacing the lost power supplies.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs passed a bill Wednesday designed to simplify federal energy regulations on Indian lands.

Two days after releasing a budget peppered with funding initiatives to combat climate change, the Obama administration has canceled a decade-old, $1.68 billion project to retrofit a coal-fired power plant in Illinois that had for a time been considered coal’s future, a successful carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) facility.

The Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern United States could plug into growing Canadian clean power sources through a new underwater transmission line under a plan submitted to the National Energy Board (NEB).

Included in President Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2016 (FY2016) is a significant year-to-year increase for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the federal regulatory agency charged with policing derivatives, futures and swaps markets.