Powhatan Energy Fund, the firm that is waging an unusual public battle against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s investigation of it for manipulative trading in PJM, is now also campaigning against the man chosen by the White House to be FERC’s new chairman. The nominee, Norman Bay, is a former federal prosecutor who has been FERC’s enforcement chief since mid-2009. (See PJM Trader Calls FERC on Manipulation Probe.)

The twin brothers who own Powhatan have a website devoted to combating FERC’s position on the transactions in question. Now that Bay has been tagged to lead the commission, “we’re out there actively trying to talk to senators and staffers about our story and spreading the word about the website and trying to get his nomination defeated,” an attorney for Powhatan said. The White House announced its nomination of Bay in January, but the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has not scheduled a hearing on it yet.

More: Bloomberg Businessweek

CFTC to Give Public Power Assurance on Swaps Deals

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will write a formal rule to fix a problem public power utilities have complained about since 2012. Soon after issuing a “no action” letter with assurances to public power in March, the CFTC said it would provide permanent assurance with a rule that effectively allows counterparties — natural gas companies, other utilities, power producers — to do “swaps” deals with public power without having to register as swaps dealers, as long as their aggregate swaps deals do not exceed $8 billion a year. The rule will put publicly owned utilities on the same basis as other energy companies. Current regulation sets a limit of $25 million a year, blocking traditional counterparties from doing these deals with public power.

More: Reuters

Gas Plants Led ’13 Capacity Additions; Solar 2nd

A little more than 13,500 MW of capacity was added to U.S. utility-scale supply in 2013, less than half the amount added in 2012, the Energy Information Administration reported. Natural gas plants accounted for slightly more than 50% of the 2013 additions, with solar contributing nearly 22%, coal making up 11% and wind at almost 8%. California led the additions, followed at a good distance by Texas, Florida and North Carolina.

Among new gas plants, additions came nearly equally from combustion turbine peakers and combined-cycle plants. Nearly 60% of the gas capacity added was in California. Two coal plants accounted for all the added coal capacity: one in Texas and the 571-MW Edwardsport integrated gasification combined-cycle plant in Indiana.

More: EIA

DOE Guarantee Program Reboots Soon, Moniz Says

The Department of Energy will open the door to new applications for renewable energy project loan guarantees during the second quarter of his year, Secretary Ernest Moniz said. Peter Davidson, head of the loan program, has suggested the revived loan guarantee program will focus on initiatives to help integrate renewables into the grid.

Under the low-emissions technology program, DOE recently finalized a guarantee for Georgia Power’s Vogtle nuclear project in Georgia and it is taking applications for coal- and petroleum-related carbon capture projects.

More: National Journal

Senate Finance Committee OKs Wind PTC Extension

The Senate Finance Committee approved a tax-extenders package that includes a two-year extension of the wind energy production tax credit, which expired at the end of 2013. The 2.3-cent/kWh credit, as before, would apply to utility-scale production for the first 10 years of operation.

More: Sustainable Manufacturer Network

‘Victory Bonds’ Proposed To Finance Clean Energy

Two Californians and 14 other Democrats have introduced a bill to create what they are calling Clean Energy Victory Bonds, an effort to put the World War II financing mechanism to work for renewable power and clean energy technology.

In the measure sponsored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Doris Matsui, Treasury bonds in denominations as low as $25 would “leverage $50 billion investment to provide up to $150 billion in public and private financing to fund the production of innovative energy technologies.”

More: PR Newswire