Funding for natural gas and oil pipelines was the big winner inFERC’s budget for fiscal year 2000, according to the agency’sbudget request.

The Commission has asked for $70.5 million for gas and oilpipelines, which is 40% of its overall FY 2000 budget request of$179.9 million. The budget request submitted to Congress last weekis up 7.8% over the $167.5 million that FERC sought for FY 1999.

FERC has earmarked $56.6 million for electric power in FY 2000,and $42.7 million for hydropower. Funding for electric accountedfor about 32% of the budget request, while funding for hydropowerrepresented 29%.

The requested increase in the budget is owing to three factors:$6 million for mandatory salary and benefits raises of 5.5%, aone-time cost of $2 million for FERC First, and $5 million forimprovements in information technology (IT), the Commission said.

As part of the budget, FERC requested 1,320 full-time employees(FTEs) for FY 2000 – 515 FTEs for gas and oil pipelines, 440 FTEsfor electric power and 365 FTEs for hydropower. This represents 57fewer FTEs than than was sought a year ago, the Commission said,adding that it expected its FERC First reingineering efforts and ITinitiatives to allow it to meet the challenges of the future withfewer employees.

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