NEM will hold its Winter Executive Committee and Policy Development Meeting on January 17 and 18, 2008, at the South Carolina Research Authority in Charleston, South Carolina for a third time. Please register at this hotlink. Hotel accommodations have been arranged at the rate of $109 per night at the Hilton Garden Inn, Charleston Airport, 5265 International Blvd., North Charleston, SC 29418. Please call (843) 308-9330 to make your reservations. An agenda for the meeting is available at this hotlink.

NEM booked the new Embassy Suites Hotel Washington D.C. Convention Center for the Annual Spring Membership Meeting and Restructuring Conference on April 29 and 30, 2008. Hotel accommodations have also been arranged at this facility located at 900 10th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001. NEM has secured preferred hotel rates of $259.00 per night. Please call (202) 739-2001 to make your reservations.

Please call headquarters for sponsorship opportunities for the Spring Event as advertisements are currently being developed. Your attendance, participation and sponsorship of these events are needed and would be greatly appreciated as would your input on speaker invitations and discussion topics.

After being tossed around and compressed into legislation, HR 6, "The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007," passed the House and moved back to the Senate this week. With a looming veto threat from the President, and contentious debate between the two parties in the Senate, the energy bill has changed in order to try and get the votes needed to pass the Senate. Two of the key changes made to make the bill more agreeable to both sides were:

1. Elimination of the Renewable Electric Standards from the bill. Senate Majority Leader Reid dropped it from the bill after several Senators noted their concerns. There had been pressure largely from “… utilities concerned with their ability to meet the required renewable percentage.”

2. Elimination of the Oil and Gas Tax Credit Repeals. The previous measures, included in the House-passed version, tightened rules on the ability of oil and gas companies to claim foreign tax credits on foreign oil and gas extraction. There were also measures in the House legislation that would have repealed several other oil and gas tax credits, including the treatment of gas lines as 15-year depreciable property. Most of the tax changes the Senate was considering only affect several of the major oil and gas corporations.

While most of this happened on Wednesday night, there was a vote to pass the bill with these modifications Thursday morning. The cloture vote to end the filibuster in the Senate, needing 60 votes to pass, failed by a vote of 59-40. More changes were expected during the day Thursday in order to get the extra votes needed. After the cloture vote, the bill will be voted on, and only a simple majority is needed to pass the legislation. However, President Bush has not changed his stance on his veto threat, but was working with the Senate on Thursday to work out acceptable legislation. NEM will post the revised legislation as soon as it becomes available in electronic form and will keep members informed about the changes in the bill.

FCC issued a notice of proposed rulemaking in which it proposes to indefinitely extend consumers registrations on the Do Not Call list, rather than let them expire after five years as they are currently scheduled. FCC states that the change is justified to alleviate consumer burdens associated with re-registering, to minimize consumer confusion caused by an increase in telemarketer calls when registrations expire, and to lower the cost of operating the registry. FCC requests comment on what impact, if any, the proposed rule change would have on telemarketers, in particular small businesses.

Relatedly, the House recently passed HR3541, "to eliminate the automatic removal of telephone numbers registered on the Federal "do-not-call" registry." Similar legislation, S2096, is pending in the Senate.

The full texts of the FCC NOPR, HR3541 and S2096 are available on the NEM Website.