When one talks of pipelines in recent days one hears nearly an incessant buzz about Keystone XL, as if that is where the real action is. But it isn't, notwithstanding the histrionics over President Obama's veto of S.1, the Keystone XL Pipeline Approval Act. The real action lies not with an 850,000 barrel per day oil pipeline, but instead with the natural gas pipelines that are needed to supply the natural gas electricity generating plants that will be required to replace, in part, 103 gigawatts of coal powered generation. What are we talking about? Building Block 2 of EPA's Clean Power Plan&n...

Because I had a seat inside the meeting room at FERC's Clean Power Plan Overview last Thursday, I got a close-up view of the protesters.  Most were older (as opposed to the college-student variety), they carried signs, wore matching red t-shirts and, after the first panel concluded, began to chant, “gas is dirty.”  Though none of them explained what they meant, and the speakers so far had not focused on Building Block 2 (shifting dispatch from coal to natural gas combined-cycle generators), most of the rest of the crowd understood that they were protesting the Clean Power...

It is innocuous enough: Conference on Environmental Regulations; but the plainness of title belies what is going on at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today. Today is the first public forum at FERC on EPA's Clean Power Plan. It is playing to overflow crowds. Notwithstanding arriving an hour early, I didn't even get to see the Commission, except remotely. One of the panelists characterized the implications of the Clean Power Plan as the most significant transformation of the bulk power system ever. While some might not agree, none would disagree that EPA's involvement in the electricit...