Bush

Bush administration officials will appear before Congress this week to testify for the first time about the federal government’s efforts to recover and restore the energy infrastructure facilities along the hurricane-damaged Gulf Coast.

If Hurricane Rita significantly disrupts domestic natural gas production off the coast of Texas, the Bush administration and Congress have a number of tools at their disposal to help the energy markets and their customers recover, said energy analyst Christine Tezak. Rita, which has been upgraded to a Category Five hurricane, is poised to severely hobble oil and natural gas production in the Western Gulf of Mexico, coming just three weeks after Hurricane Katrina disrupted activity offshore and onshore Louisiana.

Two senior Bush administration officials warned Tuesday of possible natural gas shortages because of the slow recovery following Hurricane Katrina, and their statements were mirrored in the Minerals Management Service report, which showed shut-in gas volumes had barely inched down in 24 hours to 3.720 Bcf/d, or 37.20% of daily gas production offshore, compared with Monday’s shut-in report of 3.784 Bcf/d. Leaping into the breach, the American Gas Association (AGA) quickly announced that it expected no supply disruptions this winter.

The energy bill has been approved by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, but debate over some of the more controversial energy issues that didn’t make it into the bill, such as removing the moratoriums on oil and natural gas drilling in much of the federal Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), appear to be far from over, according to Washington sources.

Massachusetts Congressmen James McGovern and Barney Frank on Wednesday appealed to President Bush to support the Navy’s plea to reopen the controversial case to site the Weaver’s Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Fall River, MA, on the grounds that it would interfere with the Navy’s testing of warfare systems.

Seven lines of text added by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) to the Transportation Authorization Bill, which President Bush is expected to sign on Wednesday, could spell doom for the proposed Weaver’s Cove LNG import terminal in Fall River, MA.

Western industry stakeholders heaped mostly praise on the 2005 Energy Policy Act Monday, following President Bush’s signing of the legislation. California’s governor, the state’s largest electric utility and the federal government’s large regional electricity marketer/transporter in the Pacific Northwest all issued initial reactions.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act, which is scheduled to be signed by President Bush Monday in Albuquerque was hailed by New Mexico officials as a boost for the expanded development of renewable energy, something this state views as a part of its longer term economic development. Participants at a renewable conference earlier this week in Santa Fe expressed a lot of optimism over the bipartisan-support legislation, the first comprehensive energy policy law in more than a decade.

The American Public Gas Association (APGA) sent a letter to President Bush last week praising the recent introduction of a new roadless rule governing national forest access and management. APGA said the rule could provide access to 11-23 Tcf of natural gas that was previously off limits. However, some experts say it’s premature to expect all the states to suddenly throw open the gates to national forest land for gas drilling.