Corporation

A returning and a new member of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) will be sworn into their respective offices Tuesday, giving the state regulatory commission a permanent replacement for Marc Spitzer, a former member and state legislative leader who accepted a nomination to FERC earlier this year. The ACC will begin the new year with a full complement of regulators.

El Paso Corp. received another vote of confidence by a credit ratings agency after Moody’s Investors Service Thursday upgraded the corporation and its subsidiaries’ ratings by two notches and affirmed a “positive” rating outlook. The upgrades, said Moody’s, follow El Paso’s progress in meeting its 2006 financial goals after reducing about $2 billion of its debt since the beginning of the year and selling $500 million of common stock in May.

Given Aquila’s inability to achieve an investment-grade credit rating, the staff of the Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) is recommending that the commission order the company to either divest its Kansas gas utility or establish a corporate structure with ring fencing that protects the utility and its ratepayers in the event of an adverse regulatory action in another state. Aquila has requested that it be allowed to file a response to the staff report by May 1.

As natural gas prices continue to come down nationally, states and utilities continue to ensure the reductions flow through to customers. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) on Wednesday gave unanimous approval to a lower fuel charge for Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) customers. However, the commission also warned that the United States’ energy supply/demand balance for the future is less than solid.

On a 4-1 vote the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) last Tuesday approved nearly $21 million for six Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) non-residential demand-side management (DSM) programs mandated in the utility’s latest rate decision. Regulators said the funding includes financial incentives and assistance to customers in order to encourage energy-efficient building design and retrofit, covering industrial, commercial, small business, and school facilities.

In a case in which no one argued against a rate hike — only how large the rate hike should be — the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) earlier this month approved a $49.3 million annual revenue increase for Las Vegas, NV-based Southwest Gas Corp. The utility had requested $66.9 million, and the ACC staff recommended about $15 million less.

One of the five elected members of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) last Tuesday proposed to her fellow state regulators that ACC staff be directed to investigate the pension plan funding levels of all major utilities in the state after her assessment of the state’s three major private-sector energy utilities revealed they are all currently under-funded collectively by more than $500 million.

Draft energy policy legislation under review in Virginia would direct the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) to identify not more than three sites in the state as “optimal” locations for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, three for nuclear power plants and other sites for wind energy facilities. However, the measure could stir controversy since it would exempt such sites from provisions of land use plans or zoning ordinances that would otherwise apply to the projects.

Making it another piece in its fall campaign to prepare the general public for steeply higher natural gas utility bills, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) last Friday wrapped up a series of public hearings and workshops around the state on a request by UniSource Energy’s UNS Gas, Inc. utility proposal to increase eightfold an existing purchased gas adjustor (PGA) surcharge to cover its higher cost of wholesale supplies.