Energy News Roundup: August 14-August 20

This week in regional energy news …

• Portland’s Ocean Renewable Power Company is celebrating its tidal project off of Eastport, Maine.  ORPC’s tidal turbine began generating grid-compatible electricity on Wednesday.
• Using FAA funds, the Portland International Jetport is tapping into the earth’s heat to generate geothermal power and cut back on oil consumption at Maine’s major airport. 
• The Utilities and Energy Committee of Maine’s Legislature unanimously endorsed David Littell’s confirmation as commissioner of the Maine PUC.  The Senate will convene next week for a final vote.
• As we reported on Tuesday, ISO New England President and CEO Gordon van Welie was in Portland this week for the 50th annual Eastern Regional Conference of the Council of State Governments.  Charlie Colgan spoke at a morning session, along with a panel that also included Maine Governor Baldacci and Jim Douglas, the governor of Vermont.  Verrill Dana’s Katie Gray attended the conference.
• Madison Paper Industries is exploring building a $25 million wood-burning biomass energy facility at its site in Madison, Maine, to reduce its costs and its dependence on oil.
• The Cape Wind deals continue to generate controversy, at a recent gubernatorial candidate debate and over the contracts the utilities have entered into with the wind farm’s developers.
• A new Massachusetts law gives increased opportunities to solar projects in the state.
• After a $12 million investment in energy conservation and efficiency measures, Bangor, Maine’s efforts are paying off, literally.

Kerry-Lieberman American Power Act on Shelf but in Focus

The American Power Act (“APA”), released as a discussion draft on May 12, 2010, by Senators Kerry and Lieberman, lays out the most comprehensive blueprint to date of a federal carbon cap-and-trade system.  While the legislation would preempt regional or state-based initiatives such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (“RGGI”), RGGI proponents will recognize many of the hallmarks of that and other regional cap-and-trade programs subsumed within the APA.  Upon Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s announcement on Thursday, July 22, 2010, that no cap-and-trade legislation will be acted upon until next fall at the earliest, draft APA remains a primary focus of the climate-change-legislation discussion.   

The provisions of the APA range far beyond carbon emissions regulation, encompassing incentives for: nuclear power development and regulatory approval; offshore drilling (seemingly hastily tempered with a call for a moratorium post-Deepwater Horizon disaster until “the Secretary of the Interior certifies that it is safe to continue proposed drilling plans”); coal, accompanied by promotion of carbon capture and sequestration technology and the institution of performance standards for coal-fired power plants circa 2009 and more recent; voluntary renewable energy markets; electric vehicle (“clean transportation”) infrastructure; and clean energy research and development.  Nonetheless, the carbon cap-and-trade provisions surely are the most noteworthy and closely-watched. 

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Verrill Dana Hosts Important Meeting on Massachusetts's New Wind Power Legislation

On July 22, the Environmental Business Council of New England’s Government Affairs Committee and Wind Energy Committee held a joint meeting at the offices of Verrill Dana, LLP in Boston.  Verrill Dana attorney Harlan Doliner, Chair of the Government Affairs Committee, facilitated an open-forum discussion of the important regulatory, environmental, and political issues involving the wind power siting legislation passed just days ago by both houses of the Massachusetts Legislature.  (Click here for Senate Bill No. 2260 and here for House Bill No. 4886, both in PDF.)  The meeting was well attended by EBC members, government officials, representatives of public and private wind developers, significant NGOs, attorneys and industry consultants.

Highlighting the meeting were two of the legislation’s strongest advocates: the principal author of the legislation, Kenneth L. Kimmell, General Counsel of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, and Jennifer Ryan, Legislative Director for the Massachusetts Audubon Society, who has been a steadfast advocate and negotiator for the legislation aimed at streamlining the permitting processes for terrestrial wind power projects.  Many believe the reason that Massachusetts currently has only 16 megawatts of wind power production in operation toward the Commonwealth’s goal of 2000 megawatts by 2020 arises in great part from the myriad of current, state and local land use, environmental and related laws which apply to wind power projects – especially those less than 100 MW - do not provide a time or cost effective procedural process with cogent standards upon which developers, investors, lenders, project evaluators and members of the public may rely.  A related, critical issue addressed in the legislation is its establishment of a municipal cap for net metering that allows for greater clarity for lenders who finance wind power projects.

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Wind Energy Siting Reform Pending Before Massachusetts Legislature

The Massachusetts Legislature is considering significant legislation that would affect how wind power projects are sited in that state.  The proposed law would preempt local land use review and approval processes by the municipalities in which wind power projects are proposed, substituting a state board consisting of gubernatorial appointees that would develop and apply its own review standards. 

Here is the Senate version, which has been approved, and the proposed House legislation.  (These links will download PDF versions of the bills.)  The legislation is pending before the House’s Ways and Means Committee.