Morrison Foerster


The solar business has been overshadowed in the past two years by rapidly declining prices, related “trade wars” replete with accusations of dumping on global markets and the failure of a high-profile company – Solyndra – pushing an unproved technology.

But solar power has in the past decade gone from a hippie style accessory and an expensive small-scale solution to a large, proven generation source with installations that can rival and exceed the scale of competing fossil fuel plants. Nonetheless, financing remains a fundamental challenge, with many projects highly dependent on market forecasts that have too little historic data for banks wary of lending to any but the most traditional enterprises at a time of intense regulatory oversight. Keep reading →


On September 19th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, sent a letter to the CEO of each Fortune 500 company requesting detailed information on his/her company’s cybersecurity practices. Given the particular importance of the energy sector to overall U.S. cybersecurity readiness, Senator Rockefeller’s expectations as to energy sector responses will undoubtedly be high.

The introductory message of the Rockefeller letter is emphatically simple: [we paraphrase] “In the face of an unprecedented national security challenge, The Chamber of Commerce and other inside-the-Beltway lobbyists have thwarted the passage of The Cybersecurity Act of 2012 which was supported by the President and the country’s top military officers. I now call on each of you as business leaders and Americans to express your support for the legislative efforts necessary to protect our economy and country.” Punchy perhaps, but on a stand-alone basis it would not be more than one would expect to get from a Ranking Democrat on a hotly debated issue in an election year. It does not, however, stand-alone. Keep reading →