Brendan H. Connors

Brendan H. Connors is an attorney in Holland & Knight's Washington, D.C., office. Mr. Connors counsels various entities within the power industry – including public utilities, oil and gas companies, renewable energy project developers and clean energy technology startups – concerning their regulatory and transactional needs.

Electric Utilities

A major facet of Mr. Connors' practice involves representing electric utilities, especially rural electric cooperatives and municipally owned utilities. This includes:

• representing clients in adjudicatory proceedings and rulemakings before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), including actions arising under the Federal Power Act (FPA) and the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA)
• negotiating and, when necessary, litigating wholesale and retail electric rates and other tariff issues
• representing clients in their relations with regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs), as well as trade associations such as the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA) and the American Public Power Association (APPA)
• representing clients in hydroelectric power transactions with federal power marketing administrations
• negotiating power purchase, interconnection, transmission, delivery point, and joint ownership and operating agreements

In addition, Mr. Connors counsels his utility clients in formulating strategies to address and mitigate proposed environmental regulations issued by federal and state administrative agencies, particularly regulations issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Clean Air Act.

Federal Financing

Mr. Connors also assists clients in obtaining various forms of financing offered by the federal government and its private sector partners.

For his cooperative clients, this entails helping them secure funding made available from the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation (CFC) and CoBank. He also assists diverse energy companies – including those involved with biofuels, advanced materials, batteries and hydrogen – in securing financing from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Loan Programs Office (LPO) for Advanced Fossil Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) projects.

Prior to joining Holland & Knight, Mr. Connors worked as an attorney for law firms in Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, where he focused on financial services litigation, regulatory compliance and government investigations.

Before entering private practice, Mr. Connors served as a law clerk to the Honorable Virginia E. Hopkins of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.