O’Neill will provide an update on FERC’s Wholesale Power Market Platform and discuss FERC’s response efforts to the August 2003 blackout.

This year’s program, Coal Power: Fueling a Sound Economic & Environmental Future, examines critical marketplace and public policy issues and their implications for future coal-based generation.

Topics to be addressed this year include mercury and multi-emissions compliance, IGCC technology, natural gas markets, transmission issues and the industry’s financial viability.

Other keynote speakers will be Kennecott Energy’s CEO Bret Clayton who will provide a perspective on the future of the coal supply industry and Annapolis Center for Science-based Public Policy board member Ford Rowan. Rowan, a crisis communications expert and former NBC news correspondent, will address Risk & Risk Communications, specifically the influence of health and environmental risk assessments on public perception and public policy.

“The Coal Market Strategies Conference is the premier educational forum for utility-coal executives to obtain critical market and strategic intelligence,” said ACC president Andy Blumenfeld.