Departing Energy Secretary Federico Pena indicated yesterday thedepartment has nearly finished its work on the legislative proposalfor electricity restructuring, but other federal agencies arelagging behind in their input.

“Let me say we have done a lot of work [in] adding legislativelanguage to our electric restructuring proposal, and I think we arefinishing the last items on [it]. We remain hopeful that some ofour counterparts in the government [that] have responsibilities fordrafting certain aspects of it will be completing their worksometime soon,” he said in a speech to the Natural Gas Roundtablein Washington.

By 2020, Pena noted gas use in electricity generation isestimated to surpass 8 Tcf/year in a competitive electric market.This is 1 Tcf/year more or 17,000 MW greater than what it would bein a regulated environment, Pena said. This will be brought aboutby a shift in demand from capital-intensive technologies, such aspulverized coal plants, to less capital-intensive technologies,such as turbine and combined-cycle gas facilities, for powergeneration.

While he lauded the actions of states on the restructuringfront, Pena stressed the need for federal legislation. “Unless wemove in an orderly way with a coherent federal proposal, we mayfind ourselves with a fractured situation that does not serve thenational interest,” he told gas executives and FERC regulators.

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