Gubernatorial

Former natural gas company executive and Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sheffield Nelson has said he may push to allow the state’s voters to decide next year whether the severance tax on natural gas production should be raised to 7%.

Former natural gas company executive and Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Sheffield Nelson has said he may push to allow the state’s voters to decide next year whether the severance tax on natural gas production should be raised to 7%, according to press reports.

When politicians talk about “ownership,” they usually are referring to home ownership and invoking the American dream. But a gubernatorial candidate in Alaska is campaigning on the idea of citizen ownership of the state’s biggest dream: the Alaska gas pipeline.

When politicians talk about “ownership,” they usually are referring to home ownership and invoking the American dream. But a gubernatorial candidate in Alaska is campaigning on the idea of citizen ownership of the state’s biggest dream: the Alaska gas pipeline.

Scrambling to make up ground in opinion polls showing his gubernatorial campaign trailing the incumbent, California State Treasurer Phil Angelides Friday stood on a bluff in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean and declared he is opposed to BHP Billiton’s proposal to build an offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal about a dozen miles out to sea.

As an example of just how far the Enron effect is carrying, one of the three Republicans opposing incumbent California Gov. Gray Davis in this year’s elections drew criticism Tuesday because a small Houston-based energy firm in which he invested has ties to one of Enron’s off-balance-sheet partnerships.

A California gubernatorial candidate and current secretary of state, Bill Jones, Thursday told major power generators and marketers they need to make some changes in how they do business in the state, or face the possible wrath of the state voters next year with an anti-electric industry ballot measure.

Frustrated by inaction at the federal level on wholesale power price caps, California gubernatorial staffers Wednesday tossed their latest grenade on the public negotiations table by supporting a proposed state windfall electricity profits tax. They said Gov. Gray Davis will consider signing such a new law if it hits his desk. But they carefully drew short of saying categorically that the governor will sign a bill or that he is lobbying for one.