The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opened a new docket earlier this week on how climate change threatens electric reliability. “The effects of climate change are already apparent,” FERC Chair Rich Glick said in a statement, “And we must do everything we can within our statutory authority to ensure that the electric grid is capable of keeping the lights on in the face of extreme weather.”

FERC also opened a separate, but not unrelated, investigation into malfeasance in gas and electricity markets during the recent cold snap that left millions in Texas and Oklahoma without power and threw markets into disarray across a large swath of the country. Wholesale power prices shot up more than 300-fold, spikes reminiscent of the 2000-2001 California energy crisis in which Enron and others jacked up prices artificially. Beyond the racial inequities and human costs, the full impacts of skyrocketing gas prices last week, both in Texas and across the central U.S., are still unfolding. While FERC does not have direct jurisdiction over the Texas grid, it does have jurisdiction over interstate gas transmission. (Reuters, Houston Chronicle, Utility Dive, E&E $, Politico Pro $)