Lisa S. Gast

Experience

Ms. Gast is the Vice President and a Shareholder of the Firm, serving clients in both litigation and consultation capacities in energy law and public utility regulation. Ms. Gast employs her decades of experience in assisting clients on the consumer-side of the industry, including municipal electric and natural gas utilities, rural electric cooperative utilities, and state public utility commissions. In addition to routinely advising clients on matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Appellate courts, she regularly advises clients regarding the legal aspects of energy strategy and implementation, including on issues such as:

• Electric transmission capacity limitations;
• Generation and transmission interconnection issues;
• Power procurement requirements including power purchase agreements (PPAs), resource adequacy (RA) agreements, and renewable energy credit (REC) procurement;
• Independent System Operator (ISO) Tariff issues;
• Interconnection and other “seams” issues with neighboring utilities;
• Collaboration with state and federal agencies to address client concerns;
• Analysis of annual Investor-Owned Utility (IOU) Formula Rate Updates and negotiation of informal challenges;
• All aspects of utility compliance with North American Electricity Reliability Council (NERC) Reliability Standards, including: development of internal compliance programs, compliance training, annual self-certifications, assistance with self-reporting, performance of mock audits, assistance with Regional Entity data submittals, drafting and review of Reliability Standard Audit Worksheets (RSAWs), assistance with Regional Entity compliance audits, settlement of Notices of Alleged Violations (NOAVs) and drafting of mitigation plans, mitigation of cyber security and physical security risk vulnerabilities, and incident response planning.

To provide leading-edge client solutions, Ms. Gast actively participates in industry associations and attends industry conferences, and is routinely called upon to present on current and potential energy regulation topics.  She is an assistant articles editor for EBA Brief, a quarterly publication of the Energy Bar Association; is an active member of the Energy Bar Association, formerly serving as Secretary and Treasurer and as a Board Member; and has been an active member of the Federal Energy Law Journal Board of Directors, most recently serving as its President.

Areas of Focus

Presentations & Publications

Presentations

• APPA Legal & Regulatory Conference 2023, Electric Reliability Trends and Predictions, Oct. 16, 2023, Seattle, WA (with Sean Neal)
• American Public Power Association, 2022 Legal and Regulatory Conference, “Environmental Equity and Reliability in the Transitioning Energy Landscape” (November 2022)
• EUCI Seminar, FERC 101, FERC Compliance and Enforcement, (with Sean Neal, Bhaveeta Mody, Lauren Perkins, Ellen Hill, and Gelane Diamond:), (July 2022)
• Presenter, “Development of the Mandatory and Enforceable Reliability Regime” and “NERC Compliance Best Practices”, EUCI course on FERC 101 and FERC Compliance and Enforcement (September 2020)
• Presenter, “NERC Reliability Compliance Best Practices,” EUCI course on FERC Compliance and Enforcement (October 2019)
• International Legal Honor Society of Phi Delta Phi and World Campus Law and Society, Penn State University, Webinar on Energy Law (January 2019)
• American Public Power Association, 2018 Legal and Regulatory Conference, “A+ Compliance:  What NERC Wants From Your Internal Compliance Program,” (October 2018)
• American Public Power Association, Industry Spotlight Series, National Conference 2018, “What Federal/State Jurisdictional Issues Mean for your System” (with Jeff Genzer, Thomas Rudebusch, Michael Postar, Sean Neal)
• American Public Power Association, 2016 Legal and Regulatory Conference, “NERC Reliability Standards and Enforcement,” with Shari Gribbin (Deloitte & Touche, LLP) (October 2016)
• Presenter, "10 Years Since EPAct2005: Where Are We and Where Are We Going?," LSI's 17th Annual Conference on Energy In California (November 2015)
• DWG&P Presentation:  “Physical and Cyber Security Webinar:  Preparation for Overlapping Initiatives” (December 2014)

Publications

• Author, "Developments in State Constitutional Law-1995," Rutgers Law Journal
• Author, "As Much As We'd Like To, We Can't Blame The Deregulation Slowdown On Enron," Legal Times, June 10, 2002