[BETA] Fortnightly

Greenhouse gas (GHG) regulation picks up where Acid Rain legislation left off, but affects far more sources and pollutants. Utility compliance programs face major uncertainties.

Lenders know there are billions of dollars of weak financial assets in the market, such as securities backed by bad mortgages. The problem is no one knows who is exposed at what level to those weak financial assets. This causes a lack of confidence in the lending industry, and a credit crunch that — if unabated — could cause a recession.

You might have thought the Feds closed the book on any broad, region-wide sharing of sunk transmission costs—especially after FERC ruled last spring in Opinion No. 494 that PJM could stick with license-plate pricing (LPP) for transmission lines already planned and built. If you thought that, you weren’t alone. Of 25 transmission owners (TOs) in the Midwest ISO (MISO), 24 voted recently to do the same for their market as well.

(December 2007) John Ferguson responds to “Creating the Perfect Regulator”: "Burr identifies four fundamental goodness traits: omniscience, Solomonic wisdom, clairvoyance and righteousness. Inherent in these traits, but not specifically addressed by Burr, is the ability to recognize and reject advice from those interested in telling the regulator what the advisors think the regulator wants to hear instead of what the regulator should hear."

American Electric Power named Michael Rencheck senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for its D.C. Cook Nuclear Plant in Bridgman, Mich. The American Public Power Association elected Roger B. Kelley to its board of directors. OGE Energy Corp. named Danny P. Harris as COO. Glen Justis joined Deloitte & Touche LLP as a director in the global energy markets group of the organization’s regulatory and capital markets practice. And others...

As many states move toward re-regulation, we speak to commissioners in Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Virginia to learn how policies are evolving—and how far the regulatory shakeup will go

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 was supposed to streamline the siting process and provide a federal “trump card” for projects delayed at the local level, but it is far from clear whether these goals have been, or will be, achieved.

The debate over implementing comprehensive electric-competition policies throughout the U.S. economy still rages to this day. Pat Wood III, as the federal regulator, had to fight many tough, public battles in defense of his beliefs on open markets. But there is no bitterness from those battles, if there ever was. It’s quite the opposite. Interviewed at the American Wind Energy Association conference in early June, Wood punctuated his answers in the go get ’em, optimistic view of the world many remember him for at FERC.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision empowering the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate carbon dioxide shifted momentum toward a mandatory program to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Eventually, there will be huge implications for power generation.

Utility mergers and acquisitions took a turn when private-equity firms Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Texas Pacific Group bid for TXU. Experts from Morgan Stanley, Lazard, and JP Morgan describe the M&A universe.