Just how close are DC’s environmental regulators and its energy regulators?

That’s what Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski would like to know. Murkowski, the Republican chairwoman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, sent the attached letter to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Jon Wellinghoff this week asking for more detail about FERC’s relationship with the Environmental Protection Agency.

Senator Murkowski specifically seeks insight from FERC on influence that EPA’s rulemakings under the Clean Air Act have had on electric reliability.

The Committee that Murkowski heads has the lead role in crafting the Clean Energy Standard, a last-ditch attempt to craft some legislative certainty for companies that have repeatedly complained about differing state regulation on renewable energy and clean fuels as well as address broader public concern about ongoing reliance on fossil fuels.

In addition to the attached document, see Breaking Energy’s “Cage Match on Capitol Hill” for more on the Clean Energy Standard.