Awaited

President Bush signed into law Tuesday a long-awaited bill that enacts tougher inspection and other safety standards for interstate natural gas and hazardous liquid pipelines.

A Colorado district court last week ordered a Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI) affiliate to pay Questar TransColorado nearly $110 million in damages, after it declared as “valid and enforceable” a 1997 agreement and 1998 letter of understanding that allowed Questar Corp. to sell its 50% ownership of its pipeline subsidiary to KMI’s KN TransColorado (KNTC), which owns the other 50%.

FERC at its Wednesday meeting issued Kern River a certificate to build its long-awaited 2003 expansion project, which would more than double the existing capacity of the Wyoming-to-California pipeline. The move opens the door for the construction of a huge new conduit for nearly 900 MMcf/d of additional natural gas to exit the Rocky Mountain region and head to the flood of new power plants in Nevada and California starting next May.

FERC at its Wednesday meeting issued Kern River a certificate to build its long-awaited 2003 expansion project, which would more than double the existing capacity of the Wyoming-to-California pipeline. The move opens the door for the construction of a huge new conduit for nearly 900 MMcf/d of additional natural gas to exit the Rocky Mountain region and head to the flood of new power plants in Nevada and California starting next May.

The House last week overwhelmingly passed a long-overdue pipeline safety bill that would require natural gas pipelines to carry out inspections less frequently than what the Senate has proposed.

The House late Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a long-overdue pipeline safety bill that would require natural gas pipelines to carry out inspections less frequently than what the Senate has proposed.

The House late Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a long-overdue pipeline safety bill that would require natural gas pipelines to carry out inspections less frequently than what the Senate has proposed.

A long-awaited General Accounting Office (GAO) report last week concluded that FERC has not effectively policed the energy industry over the past years, but it said the Commission was not totally to blame. The agency needs greater authority to issue civil penalties, more employees who have a working knowledge of how competitive energy markets operate, a bigger budget and a more aggressive monitoring presence in the natural gas and electricity markets, if it is to become effective in the future, according to the GAO.

Long-awaited Senate action on comprehensive energy legislation, which appeared briefly on the floor last Friday, is expected to spark a lengthy and contentious debate in the lower chamber when it re-emerges after the week-long Presidents Day recess.