Comprehensive

California’s lower house state Assembly Thursday passed a comprehensive energy efficiency bill that would force both private and public sector utilities to meet accelerated statewide goals for increasing energy-saving programs. The vote was 57-18 for AB 2021, pushed by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, chair of the Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee.

In the absence of a real comprehensive national energy policy, and with important policy decisions in California and British Columbia limiting options, the West will become even more dependent on natural gas in the next 10 years, according to Eric Markell, senior vice president at Puget Sound Energy (PSE). He thinks the region has no other choice.

FERC on Tuesday approved a comprehensive settlement with Enron Corp. agreed to by California parties, attorneys general in Washington and Oregon, and Commission staff. The settlement, which has a nominal value of $1.5 billion, marks a turning point in the Commission’s efforts to bring closure to the 2000-2001 Western energy crisis, said FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher.

FERC is considering whether it should use its new authority under the newly-minted comprehensive energy law to try and improve price transparency in the electricity and gas markets, FERC Chairman Joseph Kelliher told reporters following prepared remarks at a Washington, DC, conference sponsored by the Energy Bar Association (EBA).

Entergy New Orleans Gas Operations, which serves 147,000 customers in New Orleans, said it stopped 17 gas leaks over the weekend and is continuing a comprehensive effort to locate, control and repair leaks throughout in the city in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Meanwhile, its sister power utility has restored electricity service to nearly 749,000 customers, or more than two-thirds of its 1.1 million Louisiana and Mississippi customers.

Speaking to a group of conservative state legislators Wednesday, President Bush called the $14.5 billion comprehensive energy bill passed by Congress last week “a good piece of legislation.”

A report in Tuesday’s edition of NGI’s Daily Gas Price Index cited a recent analysis of the comprehensive energy bill by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) (see Daily GPI, Aug. 2). In analyzing the impacts of the energy bill, EIA focused on the bill that was passed by the House of Representatives last April rather than the version of energy bill that was approved by Congress last week. The EIA said it would have drawn different conclusions about the final version of the energy bill, which was substantially different that the earlier House version of the legislation.

Calling it the most comprehensive energy bill to be put before Congress in decades, House and Senate negotiators on Tuesday ended a four-year stalemate by wrapping up work on the sweeping measure that promotes expanded production of oil, natural gas, electricity and renewable fuels, as well as the construction of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, pipelines and gas storage facilities.

Dynegy Inc.’s share price inched up on Friday following news that it had settled all of the shareholder class action litigation brought against the company between June 2001 and July 2002. The settlement could pave the way for a possible sale or merger of the company, which has been rumored to be in the works for several weeks.