A federal appellate court has determined that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) had been issuing certain California electric utility transmission rate decisions in a rote or routine manner without adequate reasoning to back them up.
The New York Public Service Commission has approved an electric utility’s proposal to include public housing residents as well as tenants in master-metered apartment buildings in the utility’s program offering summertime cash rebates to those customers who permit the utility, Consolidated Edison Company of New York (ConEd), to remotely control their room air conditioners (ACs) during brief periods of high demand for electricity.
Consistent with the goals set forth in 2015’s Assembly Bill (AB) 693, the California Public Utilities Commission has set forth a framework for assuring that a greater proportion of the benefits associated with net metering can be captured by residents in limited-income housing complexes.
The California Public Utilities Commission agreed to several new trial programs that provide for biomethane gas to be introduced into the state’s natural gas pipeline system.
Explaining that it was statutorily proscribed from exercising initial judicial review of decisions entered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Roanoke Division, has denied motions from several opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for an order enjoining the pipeline developer from proceeding with actions in eminent domain against property owners whose lands would be traversed by the pipeline.
Several states have already reacted to the recently passed Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), which was signed into law by President Trump on December 22, 2017. Most of the provisions of the TCJA became effective as of January 1, 2018. Some states have opened proceedings to review the impact of the TCJA on utility rates, while others have signaled an intent to monitor how utility revenue requirements and rates may be impacted as a result of changes to the federal tax code, especially those reducing the corporate tax rate and revising the federal tax structure.