December 14, 2018
The inexorable links between energy and climate change meant climate played a central role in the biggest court decisions of 2018 affecting the energy sector, from Big Oil dodging climate torts brought by cities to the Trump administration's approval of the Keystone XL pipeline running aground due to a faulty review of climate impacts. Here are five significant energy-related court decisions from the past year.
September 13, 2018
The Seventh Circuit on Thursday upheld subsidies offered by Illinois to prop up struggling nuclear power plants, rejecting arguments that the so-called zero-emission credits are preempted by the Federal Power Act and usurp the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's exclusive jurisdiction over wholesale electricity markets.
June 21, 2018
Climate change hogs the spotlight in some of the most closely watched court cases involving the energy sector, from bids to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate-related damages to an increasingly tense showdown between the Trump administration and California over the future of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. Here are several cases energy attorneys will be watching in the second half of 2018.
May 29, 2018
The U.S. government told the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday that Illinois' plan to subsidize nuclear power plants doesn't usurp federal authority over wholesale electricity markets, and that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is well positioned to address any conflicts between state and federal electricity policies.
February 22, 2018
The Seventh Circuit on Wednesday asked the U.S. government to weigh in on whether Illinois' plan to subsidize nuclear power plants usurps federal authority over wholesale electricity markets, a sign that the appeals court is still struggling to decide the issue.
January 03, 2018
A group of power producers challenging an Illinois law providing clean-energy subsidies to a pair of nuclear power plants in the state took their case to the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday, but at least one judge on the panel seemed skeptical that the court should decide the dispute.
December 13, 2017
A coalition of power producers on Tuesday told the Seventh Circuit that the effort by Illinois to prop up two struggling Exelon Corp. nuclear power plants is an overreach of authority reserved for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, adding that Supreme Court precedent showed the state went too far.
October 30, 2017
Illinois' plan to subsidize struggling nuclear power plants is a legitimate exercise of its authority over environmental and electricity policy and doesn't usurp the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's exclusive authority over wholesale power markets, the state told the Seventh Circuit on Friday.
September 06, 2017
Two natural gas industry groups told the Seventh Circuit on Tuesday that Illinois' plan to subsidize struggling nuclear power plants usurps federal authority over wholesale electricity markets and unlawfully discriminates against the use of gas as a fuel source for electric generation.
August 29, 2017
An Illinois federal judge wrongly backed the state's plan to subsidize struggling nuclear power plants, which clearly usurps federal authority over wholesale electricity markets, a coalition of independent power producers told the Seventh Circuit on Monday.