Speaking Energy

On April 9, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order (EO)¹ directing several federal agencies and subagencies that regulate energy, environmental, and conservation matters,² including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Department of Energy (DOE), to establish conditional sunset dates for “regulations governing energy production.” The stated objective of the EO is to require agencies to periodically reexamine their regulations to ensure that they continue to serve the public good. For FERC, the order covers regulations promulgated under the Federal Power Act (FPA), the Natural Gas Act (NGA) and the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act (FUA)³, as amended, while DOE must consider regulations promulgated under the Atomic Energy Act (AEA), the National Appliance Energy Conservation Act, the Energy Policy Act of 1992 (EPAct 1992), the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005) and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), as amended (collectively the Covered Regulations).⁴ To the extent the DOE has been directed to promulgate regulations under various sections of the NGA, FPA and FUA, and FERC has been directed to promulgate regulations specific to the statutes attributed to the DOE in the EO, the EO is silent. The EO expressly does not apply to those “regulatory permitting regimes authorized by statute.”⁵

We are pleased to share a recording of Akin’s recently presented webinar, “Drilling Down: What Oil & Gas Companies Can Expect from Federal Agencies During Trump’s Second Administration.”

On June 28, 2024, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., which for 40 years required court deference to reasonable agency interpretations of federal statutes in certain circumstances, even when the reviewing court would read the statute differently. The Court ended “Chevron deference” and held that courts “must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.” In doing so, the Court upended a longstanding principle of administrative law that is likely to make agency decisions more susceptible to challenge in the courts.

We are pleased to share a recording of Akin’s recently presented “FERC Order No. 2023-A: What’s New and What’s Next?” webinar, along with the program materials.

2023 saw two megadeals in the oil & gas industry that have led to calls from environmental interest groups for the FTC to intervene despite a lack of obvious antitrust issues. Whether the FTC will sue to block the deals remains to be seen.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the “Commission”) recently issued Order Nos. 896 and 897 (collectively, the “Reliability Orders”),¹ which are two final rules designed to bolster electric grid reliability during extreme heat and cold weather events that “may cause unacceptable risk to life and economic harm,” especially during periods of unexpectedly high demand on the Bulk-Power System.²

We are pleased to share a recording of Akin’s recently presented “FERC’s Interconnection Rule: What’s In, What’s Out and Does It Matter?” webinar, along with the presentation materials.