Morrison & Foerster represents clients in state and federal energy regulatory matters, in regulatory litigation, and on major infrastructure and other transactions. We represent and advise clients on an ongoing basis in connection with legislative and regulatory developments affecting the energy industry. In addition to representing clients before state utility commissions, we maintain an active energy regulatory practice in Washington, D.C. representing clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other federal agencies with energy jurisdiction.
We assist non-U.S. governmental agencies and other non-U.S. clients on regulatory and transactional energy matters, including the relationships between independent power producers and marketers, the functioning of a competitive market to generate electric power, and the deregulation of, and regulatory framework for, natural gas markets.
In our transactional practice, we regularly represent commodity deals in a wide variety of merchant energy transactions. We represent clients in traditional electric and gas ratemaking proceedings. We assist clients working to develop and license alternative and renewable energy projects and LNG and gas pipeline projects and to authorize, expand, or restructure generation, transmission, and distribution facilities. Our attorneys also provide strategic counseling for clients with interests in the gas, electric, and oil pipeline business.
For more than three decades, we have represented the State of Alaska in all of its oil pipeline matters before FERC. On the Trans-Alaska Pipeline (TAPS), at both the FERC and the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, we have litigated billions of dollars of rate cases involving overall rates as well as issues such as quality banks, pumpability factors, remediation costs for corrosion repairs and deficient management practices, and inclusion of settlement costs related to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. We also represented Alaska in energy royalty, tax, and bankruptcy cases and were counsel to many state administrations on the development of the Alaska gas pipeline, the world’s largest energy project. We are lead counsel to the Liberty Natural Gas project, a $750 billion Deep Water port and pipeline to be licensed by the Maritime Administration and the FERC.
We have successfully litigated some of the energy sector's most important cases, including state and federal jurisdictional disputes under the Federal Power and Natural Gas Acts, rate cases, controversies regarding state implementation of PURPA, petitions for review or appeals challenging state PUC and FERC decisions, antitrust claims against electric or gas industry companies, multimillion-dollar contract disputes, disputes between energy service providers and utilities or commercial/industrial customers, controversies concerning retail wheeling and transmission access, disputes over the extent of pipeline service obligations, and securities cases arising out of events such as the California energy crisis.
Our energy, corporate, and project finance attorneys work together to structure U.S. and international renewable and alternative energy projects, including assisting with the negotiation of underlying power purchase agreements, construction contracts, operation and maintenance agreements, thermal host agreements, and natural gas and other fuel supply agreements. Our Clean Technology + Alternative Energy team has extensive experience providing legal services to companies in the alternative and renewable energy sector, including those engaged in solar, biofuels, wind, geothermal, ocean (tide and wave energy), waste-to-energy, and hydroelectric matters.
Our work in the merchant energy field is conducted by an interdisciplinary team drawn from our derivatives and trading, secured finance and project finance, capital markets, tax, energy regulatory, and financial restructuring practices. Our team represents commodity dealers and merchants in energy finance and hedging programs, long-term commodity supply arrangements, storage, tolling, processing and off-take deals, trading collateral documentation, and product structuring and development.
Our energy clients include AES Corporation, Kern River Gas Transmission Company, Liberty Natural Gas, Pacific Energy Partners, Plains All American Pipeline, Southwest Gas Corporation, and the State of Alaska.