Corporation

All four of the commissioners on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) who were up for election last Tuesday won back their seats on the state regulatory commission, while neighboring New Mexico saw the election of two new Democratic Party commissioners, despite a majority of the state voters supporting President George W. Bush’s re-election to the White House.

All four of the commissioners on the five-member Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) who were up for election last Tuesday won back their seats on the state regulatory commission, while neighboring New Mexico saw the election of two new Democratic Party commissioners, despite a majority of the state voters supporting President George W. Bush’s re-election to the White House.

Invoking a new policy, albeit with conditions, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) late last month pre-approved Southwest Gas Corp.’s participation in a proposed 750,000 Dth/d interstate natural gas pipeline that Kinder Morgan intends to build from the San Juan Basin to the Phoenix area and then West to the California border. Arizona’s deep thirst for new gas supplies prompted the move, regulators indicated in approving the gas utility’s pre-approval request.

Invoking a new policy, albeit with conditions, the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) last Thursday pre-approved Southwest Gas Corp.’s participation in a proposed 750,000 Dth/d interstate natural gas pipeline that Kinder Morgan intends to build from the San Juan Basin to the Phoenix area and then West to the California border. Arizona’s deep thirst for new gas supplies prompted the move, regulators indicated in approving the gas utility’s pre-approval request.

Enron Corp. said a vote of its creditors on the plan for the corporation and its affiliates to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy was overwhelmingly favorable. The company filed the certification of the creditors’ vote with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Thursday.

Late Wednesday afternoon Columbia Gas, in what it called a “pre-Operational Flow Order warning for all transportation rate schedules at MLI 72-23 (UGI Corporation-23),” said it has recently experienced lower than normal pressures on its Lines 1278 and 10110 in Market Area 23. “This low-pressure problem was created by shippers’ excessively high hourly rates at MLI 72-23,” the pipeline continued. See the bulletin board for a list of “actions that Columbia’s shippers can take now to reduce the possibility that Columbia will need to issue an OFO in the future.”

The Kansas Corporation Commission (KCC) on Monday launched an investigation examining the establishment of standards and criteria for financially weakened gas and electric utilities “to assure retail customers continuity of service, including, in particular, continuity in the quality of that utility service.”

Arizona’s top energy regulator, Marc Spitzer, chair of the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), described a rapidly growing southwestern natural gas market in need of additional gas storage infrastructure at the “Southwestern Gas Storage Technical Conference” FERC held in Phoenix Tuesday.

In a proceeding that involves questions of federal and state regulatory jurisdiction, the Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) recently rejected a proposal by Virginia Electric & Power Co. (VEPCO) to make wholesale sales of power at cost-based rates to affiliate Dominion Retail Inc.