Malcolm C. McLellan

Malcolm McLellan practices in the areas of administrative and commercial law representing users of natural resources.  His practice focuses on the regulation of electricity, transmission, and Alaskan fisheries.  Malcolm has an intricate knowledge of the technical, legal and business considerations facing electric utilities, as well as a depth of practical experience gained from working with the operators of interconnected electric systems and marketers in the Western Interconnection.  He has significant experience counseling on rulemakings, compliance, project development, and complex, international, multi-party agreements.  Representative Energy Counseling Matters Include:

Canadian/American Trade

• Representing Canadian and American electric utilities on issues relating to cross border trade, coordinated operations, and implementation of the Columbia River Treaty.

Compliance

• Developing comprehensive energy compliance programs.
• Defending enforcement actions and investigations.
• Advising on Open Access Transmission Tariff and business practice compliance issues, reliability standards, standards of conduct, market behavior rules, interlocking director rules, electronic quarterly reporting, and accounting rules.
• Obtaining agency interpretations and guidance.

Infrastructure Planning and Development

• Advising electric transmission developers and transmission planners.
• Advising solar, wind and hydroelectric generation developers in the Western Interconnection, Hawaii and Alaska. 
• Performing due diligence associated with the purchase of generation facilities in the Northwest and power purchase agreements.
• Creating of the ACE Diversity Interchange tool, used in the Western Interconnection to manage area control error among participating electric balancing areas.
• Negotiating the Rocky Reach and Rock Island Hydroelectric Projects’ Anadromous Fish Agreements and Habitat Conservation Plans, and associated biological options for the protection of salmon and steelhead in the Columbia River.

Market Formation

• Counseling the Idaho Power Company in plans to form a regional transmission organization in the Pacific Northwest known as RTO West and Grid West.
• Counseling the Public Utility District No. 1 of Chelan County, Washington in a process intended to form an independent system operation in the Pacific Northwest known as Indego.
• Counseling on the creation of the Mid-C trading hub.

Power Trading

• Negotiating custom bilateral power sales agreements, and power purchase agreements, for transactions in the Western Interconnection, and negotiating transactions based upon the Western System Power Sales Agreement.
• Negotiating customized real-time hydroelectric marketing agreements.
• Negotiating the Mid-Columbia Hourly Coordination Agreement to enhance coordination of hydroelectric projects in the area.

Fisheries Matters

• Counseling the Alaska Crab Processors Arbitration Organization, and the Alaska Affiliated Crab Harvester Arbitration Organization, in the implementation of National Marine Fisheries Service’s Bering Sea and Aleutian Island Crab Rationalization Program.
• Counseling the At Sea Processors Association on the development of a program consistent with National Marine Fisheries Service regulations limiting Chinook salmon bycatch in the harvest of pollock in the Eastern Bering Sea.
• Representing Nippon Suisan (U.S.A.), Inc. in an exchange of limited partnership ownership interest in the fishing vessel Alaska Ocean, for stock in the Glacier Fish Company.

Professional and Civic Affiliations

• USO Council for the Puget Sound Area (Chairman of the Board)
• Boy Scout Troop 647, Mercer Island, WA (Scoutmaster)
• Cub Scout Pack 624, Mercer Island, WA (Former Cubmaster)
• Washington State Apple Blossom Festival Association (Legal Consultant)
• Mercer Island Presbyterian Church
• Mercer Island Beach Club
• Seattle Yacht Club

Honors & Distinctions

• Best Lawyers in America; Energy Law; 2012

Publications

Malcolm McLellan & Carol Opatrny, Maintaining a Balance: Innovation in Power System Balancing Authorities, 1 Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy 1 (July 2011).

Articles

• Effective and Empowered Collaborative Institutions for Multi-State Decisions on Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation
• The Public Interest Jurisdictionally and Extra-Jurisdictionally: Toward Effective and Empowered Collaborative Institutions for Multistate Decisions on Transmission Planning and Cost Allocation
• Power Administrations Seek Increased Role

Speaking Engagements

• LSI: Electric Transmission in the West, March 22, 2012
• LSI: Buying and Selling Electric Power in the West, January 27, 2012
• The Seminar Group: 3rd Annual Developing Wind Power in the Northwest, November 10, 2011
• The 13th Annual Conference on Energy in California, November 3, 2011
• NIPPC Annual Meeting 2011, September 12, 2011
• LSI: Renewable Energy in the Pacific Northwest, August 4, 2011

News

• For 7th Consecutive Year, Van Ness Feldman Professionals Are Among "The Best Lawyers in America"
• Van Ness Feldman Entertains Wounded U.S. Army, Marine Corps Veterans at U.S. Open Golf Championship
• Van Ness Feldman's Malcolm McLellan Was Quoted in Puget Sound Business Journal on the Expanding Role of the USO
• VNF's Malcolm McLellan quoted in The News Tribune