Federally

A local utility company spin-off and creation of three new separate federally regulated electric and natural gas businesses are central elements of a reorganization plan filed Thursday by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in its Chapter 11 proceedings in federal bankruptcy court. The plan calls for all creditors to be paid in full without any added retail utility rate increases or a so-called “bailout” from state lawmakers. The utility, a major part of PG&E Corp., said the official creditors’ committee supports the plan, which the company expects to have fully implemented by the end of 2002.

California power marketer/generators blasted the state transmission grid operator’s (Cal-ISO’s) federally filed market stabilization plan as potentially being “extremely detrimental” to the state’s struggling electricity markets and urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reject it. The plan promises to cause “more blackouts in the West, chase away much-needed new generation, and jack up wholesale power costs,” according to the Western Power Trading Forum, a trade and lobbying group for marketers, scheduling coordinators, power exchanges and generators. The Cal-ISO proposal includes price caps and restrictions on selling California-generated power out of state. “It is yet another attempt to heap more rules on an already overruled market,” said Gary Ackerman, executive director of the trading forum.

President Clinton’s announcement Friday of a ban on new roads,logging and other activities on more than one-fourth of allfederally owned lands will put quite a dent in the futureexploration and production of natural gas in the United States, gasproducers indicated.