© 2017 The Texas Lawbook.
By Brooks Igo
(Nov. 16) – Thompson & Knight strengthened its government and regulatory practice with the addition of Nicolas McTyre as counsel to its Austin office.
For the past five years, McTyre has served as a trial attorney for the office of administrative litigation for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C. He says he was attracted to T&K’s “dynamic” energy regulatory practice.
“T&K’s presence in Texas, a major global energy center, was also a very significant factor,” he added.
McTyre focused his efforts at FERC on electric transmission rate cases and organized market issues. He also handled matters involving oil and gas pipeline regulation.
Grid resiliency, or the ability of the nation’s electric grid to avoid damage and achieve rapid recovery from events causing extreme stress, is the hottest topic in energy regulatory space, McTyre says.
He points to a recent U.S. Department of Energy proposal that suggests that FERC address resiliency through market subsidies to coal and nuclear generation facilities. McTyre says current research shows the proposal, if implemented, would significantly increase energy costs for U.S. power customers—between $2 to $10 billion annually—while achieving little corresponding resiliency benefits.
“While the current policy addresses FERC jurisdictional markets, early coal generator retirements in Texas raise the issue of whether similar policies may be examined at the ERCOT market level,” he says.
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