Economist

An economic impact study released Tuesday by the Ohio Oil & Gas Energy Education Program (OOGEEP) found that more than 200,000 oil and natural gas jobs, generating $12 billion in wages and income, could be created in the Buckeye State’s portion of the Utica Shale by 2015.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger chose an economist to be the newest regulator on the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC). Nancy Ryan, the regulatory body’s current deputy executive director for policy, gives the CPUC a full complement of regulators a month after the Senate refused to reconfirm Rachelle Chong, a telecommunications attorney and former member of the Federal Communications Commission, to a full six-year term. Ryan, 49, has expertise in energy markets, climate change policy and the public health and ecological impacts of energy production, and she worked for several years in the environmental sector. The appointment requires Senate confirmation within a year’s time. Ryan has been a member of the CPUC management team since January 2006 when she began as CPUC President Michael Peevey’s chief energy adviser and served as his chief of staff from April 2007 to February 2009.

A leading economist last Monday questioned whether restructuring of the U.S. electricity industry has resulted in any discernible benefits to energy customers over the years.

A California utility consumer advocate and a Kentucky-basedeconomist/consultant offered a national meeting of state regulatorycommissioners in San Diego last week different prescriptions forproviding long-term relief to retail consumers in the midst ofvarious electric industry restructuring efforts scattered aroundthe nation.

Natural gas is the common denominator that will “foster allreasonable wishes” of environmental groups and still support majorand sustained economic activity for the foreseeable future,according to a University of Houston economics professor who so farhas been on target in his predictions about energy.

Natural gas is the common denominator that will “foster allreasonable wishes” of environmental groups and still support majorand sustained economic activity for the foreseeable future,according to a University of Houston economics professor who so farhas been on target in his predictions about energy.