ENERGY AND UTILITIES
We have a broad energy and utilities practice, focusing upon the electric and natural gas industries.
Our practice involves all areas of electric public utility law, including regulation by the Louisiana Public Service Commission and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; cogeneration and other power plant development, rates for electric sales and transmission, interconnection matters, issues under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935; general corporate, financing, other transactional matters; and representation in civil litigation. This work involves issues in generation, transmission, distribution, and sales.
Phelps Dunbar’s energy and utilities practice also concentrates on mergers and acquisitions, restructuring, diversification, labor and employment benefits, tax, antitrust and utility bankruptcy. We have experience in rural electric cooperative and municipal electric law. We also represent major independent electric power producers, with counsel particularly focused on generation development, state and federal regulatory advices, as well as general corporate and business issues. In addition, we represent industrial consumers in self-generation projects and interactions with their incumbent electric utility provider. We also represent lenders and public investors in electric power projects.
The firm’s energy and utilities practice also involves the representation of parties involved in the sale or transmission of natural gas and liquid hydrocarbons. Here, our practice concentrates on the contracting and regulatory aspects of such arrangements. Our representation is on behalf of pipelines as well as of industrial consumers and shippers of natural gas.
Our traditional oil and gas practice covers both the transactional and operational segments of the industry. We have represented energy companies as well as individuals on a wide variety of matters, including the negotiation and drafting of leases, farmout agreements, operating agreements and the like; title review and opinions; oil and gas property acquisitions and sales; and environmental compliance and litigation. We have experienced litigators with knowledge of the issues unique to the oil and gas industry. The firm also has represented lending institutions and energy companies in the execution of energy-related mortgages and other security devices.
Alan C. Wolf directs the firm’s energy and utilities practice. He has over 30 years of experience in electric and natural gas utility matters and previously served as senior trial attorney in the Electric Rates Section of the Office of the General Counsel of FERC and subsequently as Vice President and General Counsel of Mid Louisiana Gas Company, an interstate natural gas pipeline and production company. Alan is a former chair of the Electric Power Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on Natural Resources, Energy and Environmental Law, as well as a former chair of the Natural Gas Rates Committee of the Federal Energy Bar Association, and now serves as a member of the Legal Committee of the Edison Electric Institute.
