Speaking Energy

On July 28, 2021, President Biden issued a “National Security Memorandum on Improving Cybersecurity for Critical Infrastructure Control Systems” (the “ICS Memo”). The ICS Memo—a product of the 100-day cybersecurity initiative we covered here—is a further step by the Biden-Harris administration to safeguard United States’ critical infrastructure, including that of the electric power sector, from “growing, persistent, and sophisticated cyber threats” that could have “cascading physical consequences [and] . . . a debilitating effect on national security, economic security, and the public health and safety of the American people.”¹

On July 6, 2021, the staff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Electricity Information Sharing and Analysis Center (E-ISAC) issued a whitepaper entitled “SolarWinds and Related Supply Chain Compromise – Lessons for the North American Electricity Industry.” The whitepaper “describes these major supply chain-related cyber security events and the key actions to take to secure systems”¹ and is “intended for electric industry stakeholders and vendors as they consider their next steps in continued response to the SolarWinds cyberattack”² and “other recently identified cybersecurity vulnerabilities [that] have the potential to compromise electric industry cybersecurity.”³ The whitepaper:

On September 17, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC or the “Commission”) issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking comments on “potential risks to the bulk electric system posed by using equipment and services produced or provided by entities identified as risks to national security.”¹ The NOI focuses on certain entities that have been designated as risks to national security (“Covered Companies”)² that are owned, controlled or otherwise connected to China and “other nation-state adversaries.”³

(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2019 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year across the following areas:

Last month over 35,000 participants attended the Gastech 2019 Conference, the world’s largest gas and LNG conference, in Houston, Texas. Members of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP’s global energy and transactions team attended Gastech and wanted to share the following observations:

(Houston) – Akin Gump is pleased to announce it has released its “2015 Energy Year in Review,” which examines the current state of the global energy market and highlights the energy matters with which the firm was involved last year in the following areas:

• M&A
• financial restructuring
• capital markets
• lending
• project development and project finance
• energy regulation, markets and enforcement
• energy litigation and international arbitration.

On August 7, 2015, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published a final rule adding the Yuzhno-Kirinskoye Field, a Russian oil and gas field located in the Sea of Okhotsk, to its Entity List, a restricted party list maintained by BIS which identifies foreign persons that engage in activities contrary to U.S. national security and/or foreign policy interests. Consequently, exports, reexports and transfers (in-country) of all items subject to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) to this Russian field require a license from BIS. Furthermore, BIS will consider such license requests with a presumption of denial.

This blog posting is the third of a series of five postings from the 2014 year-end energy briefing.

This article was first published in The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, January 2015 issue.

Burdick: Leading our next discussion is Wynn Segall, a partner in the International Trade practice. Wynn will provide an update on the situation in Ukraine and Russia.