Acting

Acting on remands from two separate appellate courts, FERC last Thursday upheld a prior order declaring part of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) pipeline network located onshore and offshore Louisiana to be transmission in nature and thus subject to agency jurisdiction, but it reversed itself on Jupiter Energy Corp. and found its small pipeline offshore Louisiana to be exempt gathering.

Acting on remands from two separate appellate courts, FERC Thursday upheld a prior order declaring part of Transcontinental Gas Pipeline’s (Transco) pipeline network located onshore and offshore Louisiana to be transmission in nature and thus subject to agency jurisdiction, but it reversed itself on Jupiter Energy Corp. and found its small pipeline offshore Louisiana to be exempt gathering.

The White House has tapped Walter Lukken to be chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Lukken has been acting chairman since late June, when then-Chairman Reuben Jeffery III resigned the agency.

West Virginia legislators went home for the rest of the year Tuesday without acting on Gov. Joe Manchin’s proposed legislation that sought to rewrite the state’s royalty law.

Former Wyoming legislator Randall Luthi has been named director of the Minerals Management Service (MMS), taking over from acting Director Walter Cruickshank, who stepped into the position when Johnnie Burton resigned in May (see Daily GPI, May 9). Luthi, who had been deputy director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, is a former speaker and majority leader of the Wyoming House of Representatives. The Interior Department press release particularly pointed out that Luthi had been a legislative member of the Energy Council, an organization of representatives of producing states and energy-related industries. And in Wyoming “Luthi was instrumental in formulation of state budgets which relied heavily upon royalties and severance taxes paid by energy companies developing federal leases,” the release said. Burton, who had served as MMS director for five years, had been accused of not being aggressive enough in collecting all of the oil and gas royalties due to the government from offshore leases and in recovering lost royalties from flawed leases.

Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp. has asked a federal court for a declaratory judgment and an injunction against the Interior Department and Johnnie Burton, Interior’s acting assistant secretary for Land and Minerals Management, saying the government is illegally attempting to force Kerr-McGee to pay royalties on deepwater Gulf of Mexico production exempted by law from royalties.

Acting on specifications in the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Minerals Management Service (MMS) published requests for comments in the Federal Register this week to prepare for proposed rulemakings that would provide royalty relief for gas and oil production using enhanced recovery techniques and for gas production from methane hydrates.

Acting on the case for a third time, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, last Tuesday upheld FERC’s 2003 decision rejecting Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp.’s bid to charge shippers firm-to-wellhead (FTW) transportation rates similar to those enjoyed by its competitors.

Acting on the case for a third time, a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, Tuesday upheld FERC’s 2003 decision rejecting Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp.’s bid to charge shippers firm-to-wellhead (FTW) transportation rates similar to those enjoyed by its competitors.