Attack

The Bush administration’s proposal to merge the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) came under sharp attack by CFTC officials and others last week.

Energy legislation proposed by the House Republican leadership Wednesday has come under attack by chemical producers for its failure to include anything that would increase natural gas supply and moderate prices.

The defense teams for Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and ex-CEO Jeffrey Skilling launched their attack on Monday, putting up a string of lower level ex-employees who countered bits of the testimony by some of the prosecution’s ex-Enron executives.

Prices were mixed Thursday, with gains and losses depending on whether a market area could expect to be under attack from winter storms Friday or get a reprieve until the weekend. The Gulf Coast and Northeast saw most of the declines, while quotes generally were flat to stronger in the Midcontinent and West.

The defense team for Enron Corp. founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling continued its attack against the prosecution’s lead witness last week, with former investor relations chief Mark Koenig spending the entire week on the witness stand in Houston. In testimony that was at times emotional and often tedious, the defense attempted to prove Koenig is wrong in his assertions that Lay and Skilling lied to investors and financial analysts about the state of affairs at the once mighty company.

Appearing before a U.S. House subcommittee hearing last Wednesday, FERC Chairman Pat Wood said that a cyber attack on the country’s power grid is a “real concern” in the context of ensuring the reliability of U.S. electricity supply.

Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn’s energy adviser, Richard “Dick” Burdette, 61, died last Wednesday from a heart attack. Burdette’s funeral was held Monday in Carson City, NV. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Burdette was named energy adviser in December 2003 after serving five years at the Nevada Public Utilities Commission as its manager of resource and market analysis. He was a consultant in several regulated industries, worked as a aide to a U.S. senator and was a public affairs officer and acting deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Transportation Department.

Charging the Bush administration with pushing federal actions that favor a large political contributor, environmental groups have attacked the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plan to open up a two counties, Otero and Sierra, in southern New Mexico to oil and gas drilling.

Charging the Bush administration with pushing federal actions that favor a large political contributor, environmental groups have attacked the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plan to open up a two counties, Otero and Sierra, in southern New Mexico to oil and gas drilling.