Agree

Even the long-criticized White House has come to agree that nationally and internationally “climate change must be one of the drivers of energy policy at every level,” California’s chief regulator, Michael Peevey, told a receptive audience last Wednesday in San Francisco before the Business Council for Sustainable Energy’s 2007 conference.

Assuming that banking and energy regulators in the UK and United States agree, Sempra Energy’s announcement Monday of a $2.65 billion joint venture with Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) to run and capitalize the San Diego-based energy company’s trading operations (see Daily GPI, July 10) provides it with the best of both worlds. Sempra can use RBS’s financial heft to realize upside growth while at the same time lowering its risk.

The House Government Reform Committee is “gratified” at the Bush administration’s progress in getting producers to voluntarily agree to pay higher royalties on deepwater oil and natural gas production, but it won’t slow down the committee’s investigation into why price thresholds were absent from leases issued in 1998 and 1999 — an oversight that is costing the federal government billions of dollars, a staff member said.

The House Government Reform Committee is “gratified” at the Bush administration’s progress in getting producers to voluntarily agree to pay higher royalties on deepwater oil and natural gas production, but it won’t slow down the committee’s investigation into why price thresholds were absent from leases issued in 1998 and 1999 — an oversight that is costing the federal government billions of dollars, a staff member said.

Industry advocates agree that a massive transition to a “hydrogen energy economy” will begin with utility companies, but they disagree on whether to start with transportation or with power generation.

While it did not agree with all of the provisions of the draft energy bill before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA) on Tuesday urged the panel to take “decisive action” and forward the measure to the House floor quickly,.

While most utilities, regulators, marketing companies and consumers agree that hedging is an effective tool that utility companies should use in managing commodity price risk, most also say the current regulatory process is inadequate to enable utilities to effectively deal with the price problems that exist today, according to a survey by Calgary-based consulting firm RiskAdvisory, a unit of SAS.

While most utilities, regulators, marketing companies and consumers agree that hedging is an effective tool that utility companies should use in managing commodity price risk, most also say the current regulatory process is inadequate to enable utilities to effectively deal with the price problems that exist today, according to a survey by Calgary-based consulting firm RiskAdvisory, a unit of SAS.

While most utilities, regulators, marketing companies and consumers agree that hedging is an effective tool that utility companies should use in managing commodity price risk, most also say the current regulatory process is inadequate to enable utilities to effectively deal with the price problems that exist today, according to a survey by Calgary-based consulting firm RiskAdvisory, a unit of SAS.