Please save the date for NEM's Fall Leadership Roundtable. The meeting will take place October 28-29, 2008, and will be hosted by IDT Energy at their offices located at 520 Broad Street in Newark, New Jersey. NYPSC Chairman Garry Brown, NYPSC Commissioner Robert Curry, NJBPU Commissioner Nicholas Asselta, and NJBPU Commissioner Frederick Butler are confirmed to participate. Eric Matheson, Energy Advisor to Pennsylvania PUC Chairman Cawley, is confirmed to attend. Delaware State Senator Harris McDowell will also attend. Angelina LaRose, Office of Oil and Gas/Energy Information Administration, will also participate. A Revised Draft Agenda is available at this hotlink. Please register at this hotlink. Special room rates have been arranged at the Hampton Inn Suites River Walk Hotel in Harrison, NJ. Please call (201) 218-5091 to arrange your hotel reservation.

NEM's Winter Executive Committee Meeting will be held at Infinite Energy/Intelligent Energy headquarters at 7001 SW 24th Avenue in Gainesville, Florida. The meeting will take place January 20-21, 2009. Please register at this hotlink. A block of rooms has been reserved at the Hilton University of Florida Conference Center at 1714 SW 34th Street, Gainesville, Florida at a rate of $139 per night. Contact 352-371-3600 for reservations.

NEM's 12th Annual Global Energy Forum & Membership Meeting will be held April 28 & 29, 2009. The meeting will be held at the Embassy Suites Washington D.C. - Convention Center located at 900 10th Street, NW, Washington, DC. Please register at this hotlink. A block of rooms has been reserved for NEM members at the rate of $279 per night. Contact 202-719-1421 for reservations.

NEM is pleased to announce that Atlantic Coast Energy Corporation, has joined the Association. Atlantic Coast Energy Corporation will be represented within NEM by its Chief Executive Officer, Anturuan Stallworth; Chief Financial Officer, Derrell D. Walton; Advisor, Robert Obeiter; and Communications Director, Bethany Stokes. Atlantic Coast Energy (Atlantic), a privately held MBE (Minority Business Enterprise) is a retail energy marketing company. Focusing first in Florida, an underserved market, and New York, a mature market with favorable regulations that support deregulation of energy supply, Atlantic is well-positioned to become a branded energy service that will provide value and quality service to its customers.

FERC adopted a final rule on Wholesale Competion in Regions with Organized Electric Markets. In doing so, Chairman Kelliher reiterated again that, "Competition is national policy and it is FERC's duty to foster competition and adopt those policies that will improve the operation of wholesale power markets and benefit consumers." The rules require the RTOs/ISOs to implement measures to improve the participation of demand resources in the market, for example, permitting aggregators of retail demand response to bid the combined demand response directly into an organized market (unless prohibited by the laws/regulations of the relevant retail regulatory authority). The rules encourage long-term contracting by requiring RTOs/ISOs to dedicate a portion of their websites for market participants to post offers to buy or sell power on a long-term basis. The rules increase the independence of the market monitoring units (MMUs) of the RTOs/ISOs, while also enhancing information sharing by the MMUs. The RTOs/ISOs must also provide a form of effective direct access to their board of directors for customers and other stakeholders. The full text of Order 719 is available at this hotlink.

NEM submitted a petition for review of FERC's Order 704-A on gas reporting. Specifically, NEM requested that the Commission explicitly exclude from the reporting requirement, “sales to and purchases by retail consumers pursuant to a state-approved retail access program.” NEM argued that the Commission’s distinction in Order 704-A between reportable and non-reportable end-user transactions is unclear with respect to the treatment of retail access program transactions. In particular, the Commission’s use of the terms “bundled retail service” and “bundled retail transaction” in the passages discussing end-user transactions coupled with a lack of discussion of retail access programs fails to provide the competitive retail gas marketing community with a clear indication of the extent of their reporting obligation. Given the burdensome nature of the potential retail transaction reporting requirement on retail gas marketers and their customers, and the competitive disadvantage such a requirement would entail for retail gas marketers in relation to the LDCs that have been excluded from the reporting requirement of retail transactions such a finding is warranted. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.