Encourages

The head of California’s beleaguered utility regulatorycommission (CPUC) Thursday encouraged the state’s major electricutilities to more fully use existing authority to do short-termforward market hedging deals for power, noting that she wanted toclarify continuing perceptions that the state regulatory body isblocking more utility hedging.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has called on FERC to design anoffshore policy that encourages private-sector investment in theGulf of Mexico gas infrastructure and the development of advancedproduction technologies. Such a policy would be in keeping with theClinton administration’s 1993 domestic natural gas and oilinitiative, he wrote in a recent letter to Chairman James Hoecker.