Save the date for the Annual Texas Chapter Symposium.

10:00 AM – 11:00 AM: Texas’s Backbone and The Legal Fight Over the State’s Multi-Billion Dollar Transmission Buildout 

Texas is undertaking the largest transmission expansion in its history with a multibillion-dollar build-out of new 765-kV lines, anchored by the Permian Basin Reliability Plan and now expanding statewide. For energy lawyers on the ground, this is playing out in real time through CCN dockets, SOAH hearings, and condemnation proceedings, as utilities, landowners, and ratepayer advocates litigate hard questions about need, cost allocation, and routing. 

This panel brings together practitioners from different sides of that fight for a practical look at how the process is actually working: bringing a CCN application across the finish line under tight statutory deadlines, challenging “need” determinations as an intervenor, navigating cost recovery and allocation, and balancing reliability mandates against landowner and community impacts. Panelists will share frontline perspectives on a buildout that will shape Texas’s grid for decades to come. 

11:15 AM – 12:15 PM: Taking the Grid Private: Capital, Control, and the Regulatory Gauntlet

Private capital is flowing into regulated utilities at a record pace, driven by the capital intensity of AI-fueled load growth and the rate-base expansion it demands. The past year alone has produced the largest PE-backed power deal in history and a wave of take-privates and change-of-control transactions across the country, including ongoing, contested proceedings testing how state commissions police private ownership of the grid. 

This panel looks past the headlines to the deal mechanics: how change-of-control review actually works at the state commission level, what conditions and commitments regulators are extracting in exchange for approval, how sponsors structure these transactions to satisfy investment-grade and ring-fencing requirements, and what ratepayer advocates are arguing when they intervene. Panelists will draw on live transaction experience to discuss whether private ownership is a genuine answer to the utility sector’s capital needs, or a new source of regulatory and ratepayer risk.

Lunch and Keynote Remarks

1:15 PM – 2:15 PM: Growing Texas Power Generation and the Role of Natural Gas 

The state’s need for new power generation generally, and for large loads such as data centers specifically, is driving significant growth in natural gas-fired generation.  As power developers move forward with these multi-billion dollar investments, how should they think about finding the right and adequate gas supply, in terms of general availability for the life of their investment and, more importantly, in terms of specific connectivity through the extensive Texas pipeline network?  With the mix of interstate and intrastate pipelines in Texas, what issues exist for both and how can they be addressed?  How does ERCOT see itself interacting with all the new generators and with the expanding role of gas in the fuel mix?  And importantly, what legal issues do developers face when contracting for long-term service to a new generator? 

2:30 PM – 3:30 PM: Catching Up to the Times: FERC’s NOPR on Blanket Certificate Authorizations and the Future of Pipeline Permitting

This panel examines FERC’s recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) proposing a significant expansion of blanket certificate authorizations for interstate natural gas pipelines. Traditionally designed to streamline approval of routine, lower-impact projects through automatic and prior notice pathways, the blanket program has long balanced permitting efficiency with regulatory oversight. The NOPR would broaden the scope of eligible activities, increase cost thresholds, and modernize the framework to reflect current infrastructure needs, with the goal of accelerating project development and reducing permitting burdens. Panelists will explore the legal, commercial, and policy implications of these changes, including impacts to capital planning, stakeholder engagement, and regulatory strategy, as well as the ongoing debate over maintaining appropriate environmental, landowner, and ratepayer protections in a more streamlined approval regime. 

3:45 PM – 4:45 PM: Energy Storage has Come of Age 

Battery storage is the lead technology at present, but other technologies are also making progress.  Energy storage has become a critical component to ensuring reliable operations of the ERCOT system, and is affecting the entire electric market, from energy services, ancillary services, transmission-cost incurrence, capacity considerations, market redesign, etc.  This is creating a variety of legal issues, including how recent legislation is implemented in the Texas intrastate ERCOT market, especially with the surge in behind-the-meter prospects and the impending changes to how ERCOT transmission costs are allocated 

Registration Type	Early (ending October 22)	Regular
Member	$325	$375
Nonmember	$400	$450
Student	$25	$25
Nonmember Student	$50	$50