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The Senate Appropriations Commission Thursday was poised to vote out along partisan lines a spending bill that provides the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) with an 18% hike in funding for fiscal 2012 to implement reforms under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

Even with their plans stalled for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) along the Pacific Northwest coast, the backers of the limited partnership behind the Jordan Cove LNG project at Coos Bay, OR, said Wednesday they have purchased the project’s 200-acre Ingram Yard site from Weyerhaeuser NR Co., which carries with it an option to acquire an additional 120 acres for the eventual development of a gas-fired electric generation plant.

ANR reported beginning engine repairs at St. John Compressor Station along its Michigan Leg South, reducing total St. John west-to-east capacity by 100 MMcf/d (leaving 1,195 MMcf/d available) through Friday. Based on current nominations, the reduction may result in curtailment of IT and Firm Secondary nominations, ANR said.

California’s proposed law (AB 591) dealing with hydraulic fracturing (fracking) was close to being held over as a two-year bill late Wednesday, according to the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA). With less than two weeks left in this year’s state legislative session, AB 591 has not moved as deadlines have passed in the state Senate Appropriations Committee.

A whale of an international power project Friday swam closer to construction along the Atlantic seaboard of Canada and the United States.

A 40-year-old Oklahoma man was arrested Friday after he contacted authorities and confessed to making a potential explosive device and leaving it along a natural gas gathering line.

Federal and state investigators found and disarmed a potential explosive device that was left along a natural gas transmission line near Okemah, OK, about 70 miles east of Oklahoma City.

A coalition of 69 environmental groups has urged President Obama to “employ any legal means” to halt hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and suggested a federal moratorium until further environmental studies of the practice are completed.

A natural gas processing and fractionation plant, which is being built along the Ohio River in Natrium, WV, to serve producers in the Marcellus and Utica shales, is 90% contracted and should be in service by the end of 2012, Dominion said Thursday.