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How Energy Company Buyers Can Limit Environmental Liability Risk

Many energy companies may be driven into bankruptcy because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Third parties seeking to purchase those companies’ assets may be concerned about potential successor liability for the seller’s environmental obligations. This article highlights some steps that asset purchasers in bankruptcy can take to reduce the risk of such liability.

Successor liability exists under each of the major federal environmental laws. Four especially important statutes for energy companies are the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act.

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Six Takeaways: How Utilities and IPPs Are Responding to COVID-19

On Thursday, April 30, McDermott was joined by Brett Kerr, vice president of external affairs at Calpine, Drew Murphy, senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Edison International, and Andrew Campbell, director of regulatory support and planning at NiSource who shared their perspectives on how investor-owned utilities and independent power producers are managing the COVID-19 crisis.

Below are six takeaways from this week’s webinar:

      1. As businesses go back to work, it is essential that they carefully plan for a new normal, including consideration of travel restrictions, acquisition of personal protective equipment, maintaining social distancing of employees and contractors, and compliance with new rules and regulations.
      2. Utilities have been and will continue to optimize their maintenance schedules to balance safety and reliability concerns considering the essential nature of electricity and risks potentially associated with deferred maintenance.
      3. Although it is too soon to see the permanent effects of COVID-19, there has been a five to seven percent reduction in weather-normalized demand: this includes both an increase in residential demand and a larger reduction in commercial and industrial demand.
      4. Utilities are watching cash flow more closely as more customers are either not paying or deferring payment, and as commercial and industrial customers reduce demand. In California, where revenues are decoupled from electricity demand, this should not affect total revenues, but may lead to reallocation of rates across customer classes.
      5. A number of large commercial and industrial corporate customers with renewable and sustainability commitments are talking about placing these commitments on hold or rethinking them as recessionary impacts become clearer.
      6. Drops in load and low natural gas prices could detrimentally impact the economics of new renewable projects seeking financing and prevent the projects from moving forward. However, as renewables often dominate interconnection queues, if some of these projects do not come online, prices could actually remain constant.

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IRS Releases Initial Section 45Q Carbon Sequestration Credit Guidance

Treasury and the IRS released initial guidance on the amended Section 45Q carbon oxide sequestration credit on February 19, 2020. Notice 2020-12 and Revenue Procedure 2020-12 provide guidance relating to the beginning of construction and tax equity partnership allocations.

This is the first Section 45Q guidance since Treasury issued a request for comments in Notice 2019-32 last year. That Notice sought input on a number of issues raised by amendments to Section 45Q that expanded the scope and enhanced the amount of the Section 45Q credit pursuant to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018, P.L. 115-123. The new guidance in Notice 2020-12 and Revenue Procedure 2020-12 is effective March 9, 2020.

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FERC Announces Tax Reform Actions and Eliminates Income Tax Allowance for Master Limited Partnerships

FERC announced actions in response to the 2017 tax reform legislation and a revised income tax policy, which eliminates the income tax allowance for Master Limited Partnerships. Regulated entities should ensure that they comply with FERC’s orders regarding the treatment of income taxes and consider whether to file comments on the proposed rulemaking and notice of inquiry.

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Transmission Planning and Construction Right of First Refusal Ruled Unduly Discriminatory, Not Mobile-Sierra Protected

The provision contained in incumbent electric utility tariffs—conferring on the holder the right of first refusal (ROFR) to construct additions to the high-voltage electrical grid, regardless of who conceived of and proposed the addition—is unduly discriminatory, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held in a July 1 decision in Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. v. FERC, No. 14-1281.   The court’s decision upheld utility-specific applications of the FERC mandate—a central open-access innovation of the agency’s Order No. 1000 (Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation by Transmission Owning and Operating Public Utilities)—that directed independent system operators and regional transmission organizations (ISO/RTO) to remove from their existing tariffs and membership agreements the ROFR provision (Removal Mandate).

Earlier in South Carolina Public Service Authority v. FERC, 762 F.3d 41 (D.C. Cir. 2014), the same court generally had upheld the Removal Mandate as applied to ISO/RTOs but had reserved judgment on whether the 60-year-old Mobile-Sierra presumption that the rates in negotiated arm’s length natural gas and power sales agreements are just and reasonable applied to the ROFR provisions of the ISO/RTO tariffs and membership agreements.  In Sierra, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the presumption applies against not only the parties to a negotiated agreement but against FERC itself; thus, if it were found to apply to the ROFR, FERC could overcome the presumption only by showing that the ROFR seriously harmed the public interest.

The court could have resolved ISO/RTO and incumbent utilities’ challenges to the Removal Mandate in either of two ways.  First, it could have determined that the context in which the ROFR provision was included in the tariffs and membership agreements prevented the presumption from applying in the first instance because of infirmities or unfair dealings in contract formation, such as fraud or duress.   Second, it could determine that the presumption did apply and then address the question of whether FERC had overcome the presumption with evidence that the ROFR in member agreements seriously harmed the public interest.  The court took the former course.  It ruled that the Mobile-Sierra presumption never applied in the first instance because (quoting Order No. 1000 and citing South Carolina), the ROFR “created ‘a pre-existing [i.e., not negotiated] barrier to entry’ for nonincumbent transmission owners.”  Citing precedent from the Seventh Circuit, the court found that “such terms” as the ROFR are “self-protective and anti-competitive [and] cartel-like.”

By cabining its holding to the anticompetitive effects of the ROFR, the court was able to bypass two other and possibly more complicated issues.  First, it bypassed the issue of whether the Mobile-Sierra presumption applies not only to the rates in regulated natural gas and power sales agreements, but also to agreement terms that affect rates.  As the court noted, both the petitioners and FERC argued the case based “on the premise” that the presumption applies to both to rates and agreements terms that affect rates.  Second and possibly more nettlesome is whether the Mobile-Sierra presumption would protect other provisions of ISO/RTO tariffs even [...]

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Timing Is (Almost) Everything: FERC Implements D.C. Circuit Guidance on NEPA Review of Multiple Pipeline Construction Projects

In the wake of two recent D.C. Circuit decisions, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has begun to implement its new policy concerning the review of natural gas pipeline construction proposals under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). To decide whether a NEPA review must include other projects proposed by the pipeline, FERC will look at the timing and maturity of other proposals and the independence of the projects.

In the first decision, Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit held that FERC failed to consider the cumulative environmental impact of four projects that had been separately proposed by the same pipeline. The D.C. Circuit held that the projects were not financially independent and were “a single pipeline” that was “linear and physically interdependent,” so the cumulative environmental impacts must be considered concurrently.

In the second decision, Minisink Residents for Environmental Preservation and Safety, the D.C. Circuit held that FERC had properly considered and rejected an alternative site to build a natural gas pipeline compressor station. Contrasting the decision to Delaware Riverkeeper, the court clarified that the “critical” factor in the previous decision was that all of the pipeline’s projects were either under construction or pending before FERC for environmental review at the same time.

In several recent orders, FERC has implemented the D.C. Circuit’s guidance in addressing claims of improper segmentation.  For example, FERC recently authorized Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Company (Transco) to construct and operate the Leidy Southeast Project. The Leidy Southeast Project will include nearly 30 miles of new pipeline loop and four compressor stations to provide capacity from supply areas in Pennsylvania to various receipt points as far south as Choctaw County, Alabama. Opponents of the pipeline project (coincidentally Delaware Riverkeeper Network) claimed that FERC should have also considered in its NEPA review three other Transco projects—one already constructed and two proposed projects.

FERC rejected opponents’ request to conduct a joint NEPA review. FERC emphasized that (1) the first Transco project was approved nearly a year before Transco proposed the Leidy Southeast Project; (2) the other two Transco projects “were not fully defined ‘proposals’ at any time during the period that the Leidy Southeast Project was receiving consideration;” and (3) the Leidy Southeast Project was not “connected” to the other Transco projects, as it did not “rely on” other projects for its operation and “would have been built even if” the first project had not been constructed.




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Key Energy-Related Tax Provisions in the 2017 Budget Proposal

President Obama’s recently released budget proposal for the 2017 fiscal year repeats many of his past energy-related tax proposals, including a permanent extension of the renewable energy production tax credit and a provision making it refundable. Making the production tax credit permanent and refundable signals the administration’s continued strong support for renewable energy. This On the Subject summarizes the key energy-related tax provisions contained in the budget proposal and detailed further in the US Department of the Treasury’s general explanation of the proposal.

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Oil and Gas in Egypt

Egypt has suffered from significant social and political unrest.  This resulted in a drop in oil and gas production levels at the same time as domestic energy consumption was rising.  Egypt was facing a serious energy crisis. The election of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as president in June 2014 proved to be a turning point:

  • There has been a substantial reduction in the level of fuel subsidies.
  • Significant steps have been taken to repay debts owed to international oil and gas companies.
  • There is ongoing diversification of energy sources, with more renewable power projects and increasing imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The future looks positive.  A number of agreements have recently been signed by international oil and gas companies and it seems Egypt is still a destination for international investment.

Read the full article in Oil & Gas Financial Journal.




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Certificated Natural Gas Storage Capacity Is Based on Science, Not Sales, FERC Rules

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the Commission) issued an order on Thursday, March 19, 2015, refusing to allow the abandonment of certificated working gas capacity when the reason for the request was unrelated to the physical characteristics of the storage facility and unsupported by engineering or geological data.  The applicant had sought the abandonment authorization for the sole purpose of reducing its lease payments, which are largely based on the certificated working gas capacity of the facility.

The order, Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC, 150 FERC ¶ 61,197 (2015), was issued following an  application by Tres Palacios Gas Storage LLC (Tres Palacios) for authorization to abandon a significant amount of its certificated working gas storage capacity in a salt dome storage facility in Matagorda and Wharton Counties, Texas.  Tres Palacios claimed that abandonment was justified because market conditions were such that it could not sell the capacity at rates that it considered acceptable.

In denying the application, the Commission ruled that Tres Palacios’s request was inconsistent with Commission policy, which requires specific facility parameters for each cavern, such as cushion gas capacity, working gas capacity and minimum pressures, and was inconsistent with Tres Palacios’s certificate authority, which authorizes specific parameters for each cavern.  In addition, the Commission explained that no geological or engineering data was submitted to support the change.  The order reaffirmed that certificated capacity is based on the physical attributes of a facility and that certificated working gas capacity is “unrelated to the amount of working gas capacity the storage company is able to sell.”

Karol Lyn Newman and Jessica Bayles represented the lessor, Underground Services Markham, LLC, in the proceeding before the Commission.




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CFTC Finalizes Exception for Swaps with Utility Special Entities

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) last week released a final rule excluding certain electricity and natural gas swaps with governmental agencies and municipalities from the lower de minimis threshold for swaps with special entities.  The rule makes permanent currently existing no-action relief previously issued by CFTC Staff.  The final rule is the result of a petition filed by advocates for public energy companies claiming that subjecting swap transactions with governmental entities to a lower de minimis threshold would reduce the number of available counterparties, raise market liquidity concerns and make it more difficult for public energy companies to mitigate risk.  To address these concerns the CFTC will allow certain swaps with special entities to be counted as regular swaps for purposes of swap dealer registration.

Under the Commodity Exchange Act and the CFTC’s regulations, an entity is exempt from registration as a swap dealer if the aggregate notional value of the swaps it entered into during the preceding 12 month period does not exceed the de minimis threshold of $3 billion (subject to a phase-in level of $8 billion).  However, for swaps with special entities—federal or state agencies, municipalities, employee benefits plans, governmental plans and endowments—the de minimis threshold is only $25 million.  As a result, companies entering into swaps with special entities have to be aware of their counterparty’s special entity status and take care not to exceed the substantially lower de minimis threshold.

The CFTC’s new rule creates an exception to the $25 million special entity threshold, so that “utility operations-related swaps” entered into with “utility special entities” are subject to the general $3 billion de minimis threshold.  To qualify for the exception the swap must be with a special entity that owns or operates electric or natural gas facilities; associated with the generation, production, purchase or sale of electricity or natural gas; and for the purpose of hedging or mitigating commercial risk.  In explaining why the exception is necessary, the CFTC recognized that utility special entities have unique responsibilities to provide electricity or natural gas services that must be continuous and are important to public safety.  The CFTC also acknowledged that utility special entities often conduct swaps in localized and specialized markets, and the lower de minimis threshold could limit the number of willing counterparties to these important risk mitigation transactions.  The new rule treats utility special entities similarly to non-governmental entities and will reduce regulatory barriers to transacting with special entities.  The rule will become effective October 27, 2014.




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