Law Office of Sophy Sedarat, LLC

Gov. Murphy asks member states of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) to allow New Jersey

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy formally requested that New Jersey be reentered into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) as a member-state. Although Murphy signed an executive order to rejoin the group, the rules of RGGI require non-member states to obtain approval from current member states before being allowed to join – approval the governor must now wait for. New Jersey, which was actually one of the initial founding member-states of the group, was removed from R

Despite $8.9 billion in cleanup costs, Appellate Court upholds NJDEP’s $225 million settlement with

Despite challenges from intervening environmental groups, the New Jersey Appellate Court upheld a lower court’s approval of 1991 administrative consent orders (ACOs) between NJDEP and Exxon Mobil. The ACOs were related to penalties and remediation of polluted sites at Exxon’s Bayway Refinery in Linden, NJ and Exxon’s Bayonne, NJ facility. At the crux of the interveners’ challenge was the fact that the lower court upheld NJDEP’s acceptance of a $225 million settlement, despite

New York State Public Service Commission receives proposal to test Tesla Powerpack batteries in powe

The New York State Public Service Commission received a proposal from the Orange and Rockland Utilities in which Tesla would “create, install, and operate 4MW/8MWh batteries that would be integrated into Orange and Rockland's power grid.” Orange and Rockland is a subsidiary company of Con Edison, which is “the largest electric utility company in New York.” The proposal requests approval for a three-year “demonstration period” in which “the project would be used to test the fe

Trump green lights foreign solar equipment tariffs

President Trump approved four years of solar tariffs to be imposed on solar equipment made outside of the US; the tariffs will be at a rate of 30% in the first year and 15% thereafter, with an exemption for the first 2.5 gigawatts each year. In October 2017, the U.S. International Trade Commission determined that imported solar equipment was harming American manufacturers and consequently recommended tariffs at a rate of 35%. Although the tariffs that President Trump ultimate

First ever cargo of Russian gas delivered to the U.S. - despite U.S. sanctions

A shipment of gas from a Russian company is anchored in Massachusetts Bay and set to unload fuel in New England despite being on the U.S. Treasury Department’s sanctions list; this will be the “first shipment of gas [from Russia] to ever reach the United States.” However, Russian gas was only part of the ship’s cargo, and because “gas from other European sources was also included” enforcement of sanctions would be difficult. Such enforcement is difficult because gas cargos “c

U.S. Department of Energy required to implement greenhouse gas reducing energy standards

A District Court ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to publish the 2016 Obama-era efficiency standards in light of the Trump Administration’s refusal to implement the standards. The ruling came in response to a suit by a “coalition of states” led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, alleging the Trump administration was violating federal law by refusing to use the standards, which “are estimated to reduce greenhouse

FERC approves Rule to ease entry of electric storage technologies into U.S. power markets

Highlighting its desire to support renewable energy in the U.S. power market, this month FERC approved a Rule which would “properly recognize the physical and operational characteristics of electric storage resources . . . [and] ‘enhance competition and promote greater efficiency in the nation’s electric wholesale markets . . . .’” The Rule is a win for renewable energy, because although wind and solar power can be intermittent, electric storage resources, such as batteries,

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