Monday, December 7, 2009

House Panel Probes Wholesale Energy Market

Additional to last week's "Turf War: "Waxman, Markey eye derivatives bill changes":
Inside baseball on policy stuff can look boring as all get out but man can you make a lot of money if you understand what's going on....
From the Wall Street Journal:
The House Agriculture Committee is investigating whether independent electric wholesale operators should be abiding by federal commodity trading laws -- a move that will likely launch a major turf battle on the Hill and between regulators.

The investigation seeks to determine if certain financial contracts regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should actually be overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It looks specifically at certain activities of regional transmission operators and independent system operators, entities that FERC says are under its jurisdiction and should not be subject to federal commodity trading regulations.

In a letter reviewed by Dow Jones Newswires, House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson (D., Minn.) wrote to PJM Interconnection LLC, a regional transmission operator regulated by FERC, requesting numerous documents to help the committee decide if should be working to comply with provisions of the Commodity Exchange Act. The investigation seeks to determine if there is "swap/over-the-counter activity" occurring....MORE