Defining

Energy in all of its complexity will continue to be “one of the defining issues” of the 21st Century, both domestically and globally, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a packed crowd at Georgetown University Thursday.

The natural gas and oil industry added nearly 12,000 jobs in Oklahoma over the last two years and remains the state’s “defining industry,” according to a new report from the Steven C. Agee Economic Research and Policy Institute at Oklahoma City University.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is scheduled Wednesday to consider the much-anticipated final rule defining “swap dealers” (SDs) and “major swap participants” (MSPs), as well as other market entities. The rule, the result of probably the most contentious rulemaking proceeding at the agency, will lay the groundwork for the CFTC to proceed with other regulatory reforms under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Wednesday narrowly voted out a much-anticipated joint proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) defining “swap dealers” and “major swap participants.”

Cash quotes continued to rise Wednesday in both swing deals fortoday and in what little bit of bidweek business remained to bedone. However, doubt was growing about how much longer theunprecedented recent price strength can be maintained after futuresreacted negatively to a storage report for the first time in morethan a month.

Looking ahead to what might be the defining issues for his nextterm if his renomination is approved by the Senate, CommissionerWilliam L. Massey focused on FERC’s pipeline certification process,its offshore policy, the issues contained in the gas policy optionspaper – which so far have not been made public – and on ISOs on theelectric side. He said the Commission probably will act on the gaspolicy options paper with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking withinthe next few weeks.