The Supreme Court’s ideological divide was on display Wednesday as justices sparred with attorneys over whether the EPA should have considered costs before deciding whether to regulate mercury and other pollutants from power plants.

About 500 organizations will be relieved of some grid reliability regulations and another 200 exempted entirely under a new NERC method for classifying entities under its jurisdiction.

This week's federal briefs cover FERC, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Interior, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Congress.

Chairman Cheryl LaFleur gaveled her final Federal Energy Regulatory Commission open meeting last week, nearing the end of a tumultuous 16-month term.

Trial staff at FERC has recommended approval of a settlement that would reduce the return on equity of Niagara Mohawk to 10.03% from the current 11.5%.

Generation owners will be exempted from FERC OATT rules, allowing them to reserve excess capacity on their tie lines for the first five years of operation.

Natural gas demand and production both set records in 2014, while gas trading declined for the fourth straight year, FERC reported last week.

FERC last week left intact most of its 2010 order meant to mitigate market power in the installed capacity market in New York City.

FERC rejected an SPP proposal to review the information that transmission owners include in their initial revenue requirement filings after joining the RTO.

A divided FERC accepted the second regional compliance filing by ISO-NE to implement Order 1000, a filing that had languished for more than a year.