Case

Arizona Public Service (APS) will file a motion to reconsider a move to slow down deregulation, after the three-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) on Tuesday voted unanimously to reverse a 1999 requirement that the state’s utilities divest their generating assets. The vote followed a ruling by the commission’s administrative law judge in July, who recommended that Arizona delay competition past July 2004 because the wholesale market was not ready (see Power Market Today, Aug. 28).

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%.

A Colorado district court late Monday 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%.

Following permission from the court overseeing Enron Corp.’s bankruptcy case, the company’s creditors filed a lawsuit Monday seeking the $12 million that former executive Michael J. Kopper had agreed to turn over to the U.S. government.

Enron Corp. won approval last week from the bankruptcy court overseeing its case for a new credit line from J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc., which is dramatically smaller than an earlier requested loan. The $250 million loan will be limited to backing letters of credit for the former energy merchant that will allow it to continue its remaining pipeline and merchant energy activities. These types of loans are required to be backed 110% by cash deposits.

The U.S. bankruptcy judge in Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s 14-month-old Chapter 11 case has moved lawsuits against the giant utility and its parent, PG&E Corp., out of the federal court, saying they should be dealt with in California’s state Superior Court system. The utility had tried to move suits by the state attorney general into the bankruptcy court, arguing that they impact its plans to get out of bankruptcy.

The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Friday Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line has agreed to extensive testing and clean-up for soil and groundwater contamination related to waste disposal at numerous compressor stations along its pipeline. In addition, the settlement with the company calls for Transco to clean up polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, complete a storm water monitoring program, conduct storm water sampling at several compressor stations and pay a $1.4 million civil penalty. The settlement is the latest in a number of similar actions brought against interstate pipeline companies over the last 15 years.

Responding to criticism that its corporate rating changes have been far too slow, particularly in the case of Enron Corp., Moody’s Investors Service said on Friday it was considering making changes in how it rates companies.

Canadian producers, distributor customers and Idaho potato processors are protesting a rate case filing by Viking Gas Transmission that the protesters claim would raise the pipeline’s rates by over 50% at the same time it proposes a number of changes in its rate and scheduling scheme, including term-differentiated rates.