A capacity resource may not take economic outages, but a resource may be considered physically unavailable if it cannot obtain natural gas or transportation.

At the NERC Board of Trustees meeting this week in Vancouver, Canada, NERC outlined a new initiative intended to reduce the administrative burden on Registered Entities associated with the processing of Reliability Standard violations.

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has released its August 2010 Visa Bulletin. The Visa Bulletin sets out per country priority date cutoffs that regulate the flow of adjustment of status (AOS) and consular immigrant visa applications.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced that the allotment of 20,000 H-1B petition approvals available to foreign nationals holding a U.S. master’s or higher degree has been exhausted for fiscal year 2011.

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has announced that the annual limit for immigrant visa numbers was exhausted on September 16, 2010 for all family-based preference categories and for the second, third, and fourth employment-based categories.

For cases filed before enactment of the America Invents Act, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified that unrelated defendants may be joined together in a single patent case only if claims are based on the same product or process.

On October 20, the Employee Benefits Security Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued Advisory Opinion 2011-09A (AO 2011-09A), in which it concludes that relief under Prohibited Transaction Class Exemption 80-26 (PTE 80-26) is not available for an indemnification arrangement involving a futures trading agreement for an individual retirement account (an IRA), raising the question as to whether such indemnification arrangements would be non-exempt prohibited transactions.

On July 29, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) extended its timeline for issuing rules with respect to various Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) provisions applicable to executive compensation.

Although most supply agreements are a benign business reality, when favorable terms negotiated with a supplier foreclose the buyer’s rivals from competing, the antitrust waters can get murky, and buyers, especially those with market power, risk government investigations and private litigation.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (the Healthcare Reform Law), includes a provision that requires employers to provide covered employees with the ability to take unpaid breaks to express milk for their nursing infants.

On November 23, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts signed House Bill 3810 into law.

The city departs from federal law by requiring employers to accommodate pregnant employees even if not considered "disabled."

D.C. Circuit Order prevents the Board from enforcing rule until the court resolves all of the issues before it; oral arguments scheduled for September 2012.

In a case of first impression, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board), now operating under a Democratic majority, issued a controversial decision on August 27 that expands the labor movement’s ability to wage public campaigns against "neutral" or "secondary" employers in addition to the "primary" employers that are the source of the labor dispute. United Bhd. of Carpenters, 355 N.L.R.B. No. 159 (2010).

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or the Board) has announced its intention to prosecute a charge that an employer’s social media, blogging, and Internet posting policy violates the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

On March 22, in a 6-to-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who "file" an oral complaint that the employer is violating the FLSA, as well as against those who file written complaints.

On February 7, the Division of Audits of the Office of Enforcement of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a report presenting the areas of noncompliance it identified during an audit of PNM Resources (PNMR), an energy holding company, and Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), a wholly owned public utility operating company subsidiary of PNMR.

On December 14, 2011, FERC rejected a merger mitigation proposal (Mitigation Proposal) submitted by Duke Energy Corporation (Duke Energy) and Progress Energy, Inc.

On February 15, 2012, FERC issued a notice announcing that it is establishing a docket to solicit comments exploring the extent to which the natural gas and electricity markets are interdependent and how FERC should oversee coordination between such markets.

On December 23, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it has reached settlement agreements with certain states and environmental groups to propose standards and guidelines to control greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from electric utilities and petroleum refineries.