Controversial

The American Petroleum Institute (API) says it supports the Interior Department’s decision to retain the controversial Bush-era polar bear rule, which restricts the use of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to address greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are contributing to the shrinking of the bear’s Arctic habitat.

Conceding that its decision was “not a popular” one, FERC last Thursday approved, subject to 169 conditions, the controversial AES Sparrows Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project near Baltimore and associated Mid-Atlantic Express pipeline, which would bring 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas to growing markets in the Northeast. The agency also upheld on rehearing two order authorizing two LNG projects — Dominion Cove Point LNG on the eastern shore of Maryland, andNorthernStar Natural Gas Inc.’s Bradwood Landing LNG terminal project in Oregon.

Conceding that its decision was not a “popular” one, FERC Thursday approved, subject to 169 conditions, the controversial AES Sparrows Point liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal project near Baltimore and associated Mid-Atlantic Express pipeline, which would bring 1.5 Bcf/d of natural gas to growing markets in the Northeast.

The Alberta government last week scaled back its controversial royalty rate plan for natural gas and oil producers, citing job losses and lower energy prices, but the revisions may be too late for producers that already have set exploration budgets for 2009, some to the benefit of neighboring provinces.

The Alberta government scaled back its controversial royalty rate plan for natural gas and oil producers, citing job losses and lower energy prices, but the revisions may be too late for producers that already have set exploration budgets for 2009, some to the benefit of neighboring provinces.

Under a controversial state law passed three years ago (SB 408), the Oregon Public Utility Commission (PUC) made its first across-the-board rate adjustments late last Friday for the state’s four major private-sector utilities. This theoretically matches the tax bills paid by the utilities with the amounts they collect in retail utility rates to pay for them.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) has begun information-gathering to carry out the controversial Lease Sale 214 in southern Bristol Bay of the North Aleutian Basin Planning Area in Alaska, which is tentatively scheduled for 2011, the MMS said last Tuesday.

Four senators whose states have been proposed as sites for controversial liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects introduced legislation last Monday to repeal a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct) that gave FERC exclusive authority to site onshore LNG terminals.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has conditionally approved 11 more applications for permits to drill (APD) natural gas wells near the controversial Project Rulison nuclear blast site.