Earlier this week, Governor Andrew Cuomo's administration announced its intention to re-start the regulatory review process by the Department of Environmental Conservation which has drawn intense public attention to determine if hydraulic fracturing should be allowed. This significant change in course is especially noteworthy as a potential compromise was floated only three months ago to try and ease the political stalemate by allowing limited fracking in counties and communities that support the technique near the Pennsylvania border where significant drilling is occurring in the Marcellus Shale.

A group of large trade organizations representing electric utilities and co-ops are legally challenging a March 2011 ruling from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) concerning the rate structure for "demand-response" technology, which are essentially agreements with customers or companies to receive compensation for reducing power demand during peak usage. The utilities argue that the FERC rule overcompensates demand-response providers and promotes the wrong signals to markets to discourage building needed baseload power generation. Demand-response companies unsurprisingly disagree, and contend that the rate structure is necessary to help reduce overall energy consumption, give more options to customers, and that it is cheaper in the long run to offset electricity demand rather than building new power plants.

The Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Senator Jeff Bingaman, is expected to soon introduce legislation mandating a Clean Energy Standard. Although details have not been published, it's expected that the legislation was based off a report drafted by the Energy Information Administration and will essentially let all forms of electricity generation that produce less CO₂ than current state-of-the-art coal plants to qualify under the mandate based on a sliding-scale. Most congressional observers doubt there are enough votes in the Senate to pass the initiative, but Bingaman's proposal may provide some of the policy framework for the Administration's push for developing a Clean Energy Standard.

The President unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget for Fiscal Year 2013 which resonated broad themes from his State of the Union speech last month before Congress. Energy and environmental issues were key highlights of the budget’s rollout, with a heavy focus on developing new clean energy, advancing research and development funding for alternative energy, as well as promoting advanced manufacturing jobs.

TransCanada has faced many hurdles in its multi-year effort to get a new 1,700-mile oil pipeline built. But this fall, the energy infrastructure company ran up against perhaps its stiffest opposition yet — from concerned residents and lawmakers in the state of Nebraska.