FERC Urged to Make Way for Carbon Pricing ($)

Carbon pricing in regional wholesale power markets is a good if not necessary step to combat climate change and ensure reasonable rates for electricity customers. That was the consensus yesterday among 30 energy sector panelists who discussed the pricing mechanism during an all-day, long-anticipated virtual conference held by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, reported Energywire.

Experts on the first panel focused on FERC's legal authority to implement carbon pricing in wholesale markets. Kate Konschnik, director of the Climate and Energy Program at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, and Ari Peskoe, director of the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative, agreed that such a policy is within the agency's purview.

"The Federal Power Act poses no fundamental obstacle to markets incorporating state carbon pricing," Konschnik said.