Heads

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Thursday overwhelmingly voted out the nomination of Ernest J. Moniz to head up the Department of Energy (DOE), which now heads to the Senate floor.

On the energy news front in Washington DC, Senate hearings for new heads of the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Obama administration’s energy budget for fiscal year (FY) 2014, and the return visit of the premier of the Canadian province of Alberta to press for U.S. approval of the Keystone Pipeline XL, will dominate the upcoming week.

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead last Friday announced new heads of the state’s environmental and treasury departments. Both new Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Director Todd Parfitt and Treasurer Mark Gordon hold key roles for the oil/gas industry in the state. In replacing DEQ Director John Corra, who retires Wednesday, Parfitt will be involved in issues touching everything from water quality to fossil fuels, said Mead, while thanking Corra for his nine years of heading DEQ. New Treasurer Gordon, who fills a vacancy created by the death of Joe Meyer Oct. 6, faces a state budget deficit of more than $30 million in the next two years, exacerbated by continuing low natural gas prices (see Daily GPI, Oct. 24).

Traders were scratching their heads Friday morning as CME Globex natural gas futures and options markets went dark at 10:04 a.m. EDT.

Traditional allies find themselves knocking heads at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) over a proposal by Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility to establish a special compression tariff and services for natural gas vehicle (NGV) fueling stations. Seal Beach, CA-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp. is alleging that the SoCalGas plan is anti-competitive.

The heads of FERC and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) announced Monday they were combining their separate ongoing investigations of the causes and aftermath of the natural gas end-use customer shutoffs and natural gas and electric infrastructure freeze-ups in the midst of a severe winter temperature drop in late January and early February in the Southwestern states.

The heads of the Senate and House committees overseeing the implementation of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act Thursday urged federal regulators to provide an exemption from margin requirements for end-user transactions in the derivatives markets.

The heads of the Senate and House committees overseeing the implementation of the sweeping Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act last Thursday urged federal regulators to provide an exemption from margin requirements for end-user transactions in the derivatives markets.

With a proposed natural gas severance tax for Marcellus Shale production apparently not forthcoming from the Pennsylvania General Assembly before the Nov. 2 election, one group representing the industry said it is “regretful that…common sense legislative initiatives” have not been adopted by the state.