Events

Events over the past year at the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission have cast a dark cloud over the fate of the $650 millionMillennium Pipeline project, but that cloud got a lot darker lastweek. NiSource’s announcement that it is buying Columbia EnergyGroup, Millennium’s lead sponsor, for $6 billion with $2.5 billionin debt assumption, may have all but killed the pipeline project.

One of the most significant regulatory events at FERC in 1998went by practically unnoticed: the word “proposed” was put backinto the notice of proposed rulemaking (NOPR), said CommissionerCurt Hebert Jr. in reflecting on his first full year at the agency.Commissioner Linda K. Breathitt, who also just ended her initialyear, agreed “proposed” took on a “stronger meaning” in a specificNOPR last year, but she hardly found it to be precedent-setting.