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Bill Massey

Before joining Covington as head of its energy practice, William Massey served as a Commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for over ten years.

Working out of Covington’s Washington, DC office, Bill has a high profile, broad-based energy regulatory and government affairs practice. He has extensive experience with complex regulatory issues before FERC and state utility commissions, and with energy legislative matters before Congress and state general assemblies.

Bill advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, enforcement and investigations, electricity and natural gas markets, energy exports, wholesale and retail market structure, transmission and pipeline infrastructure investment, RTO tariffs, and legislative strategy at the federal and state levels.

Bill's clients include investment firms and banks, utilities, independent power producers, pipelines and shippers, oil and gas companies, project developers, gas and electricity marketers, customers, and energy companies on a wide variety of energy matters. He also served for a decade as outside counsel to a large and diverse coalition of energy companies, demand response providers and is recognized by Chambers and Chambers Global, Best Lawyers in America, Legal 500 US for Energy, and as a Washington, DC Super Lawyer.

Drawing on over 35 years as a Washington insider and counselor, including almost a decade as Chief Counsel to a prominent U.S. Senator, Bill understands the intersection of policy, legislation and regulation. He offers a highly effective combination of strategic, legal and policy skills to his clients.

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With potential liabilities in excess of $30 billion stemming from a series of deadly wildfires that ignited across Northern California in 2017 and 2018, Pacific Gas and Electric Company and its holding company PG&E Corp. (PG&E) filed for Chapter 11 relief in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday.

The filing triggers a complex, multi-forum struggle among creditors, energy providers, and many other diverse stakeholders.  The impact of the restructuring process will be far reaching, jeopardizing compensation to wildfire victims, the state’s implementation of its ambitious climate and renewable energy policies, and the ultimate future of the utility as a partner in those efforts.
Continue Reading Rising from the Ashes: How PG&E’s Bankruptcy Threatens the Energy Sector and California’s Progress on Climate Change

Carbon pricing is seen by many as an effective means of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from electricity generation.  California and several Eastern states have enacted “cap and trade” emission allowance programs, which have forced generators in those states to pay a price for their CO2 emissions.  With the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan not being implemented, there is currently no federal policy in place that would result in carbon pricing for electricity.  In a singular proposal, acting without any state or congressional mandate, but with the support of State regulatory agencies, the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) proposes to require carbon pricing for all power sold in New York State through the NYISO wholesale electricity market.  For the first time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will be called upon to decide whether and how carbon pricing may be incorporated into wholesale electricity market tariffs solely under the authority of the Federal Power Act.

The NYISO carbon pricing proposal must be fully developed and vetted through a stakeholder process that could take one to two years to reach consensus on a tariff amendment that would be submitted to FERC for review and approval.  This stakeholder process and the subsequent FERC proceeding will grapple with complex issues of electricity market design and novel jurisdictional and policy issues.  The outcome of this process could lead to a push for the adoption of carbon pricing in other FERC-regulated organized regional electricity markets throughout the nation.
Continue Reading New York Proposes Innovative Carbon Pricing for Electricity

Under the Natural Gas Act (NGA), FERC certificates the construction and operation of pipelines to transport natural gas in interstate commerce if they are “required by the present or future public convenience and necessity.”  For almost two decades, FERC has used a 1999 policy statement’s guidelines to evaluate whether new pipelines meet that statutory standard. …

This is the third and final of three posts on this blog providing short summaries of the generic electricity policy initiatives already teed up and awaiting possible action by the newly-constituted FERC.  Together, these three posts describe initiatives that address fundamental market and resource issues spanning a broad range of FERC’s electricity authorities.

Today’s post…

This is the second post of three on this blog providing short summaries of the generic electricity policy initiatives already teed up and awaiting possible action by the newly-constituted FERC.  Together, these three posts describe initiatives that address fundamental market and resource issues spanning a broad range of FERC’s electricity authorities.

Today’s post summarizes initiatives…

Entergy’s large transmission system and five operating companies in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and eastern Texas have been integrated into the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO).  This extends MISO’s footprint to 15 states from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, making MISO the largest Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) by geography.  The integration adds about 18,000…