Impose

Congress needs to take steps to regulate all natural gas commodity markets equally, impose a limit on traders’ positions, enforce the statutory prohibition against excessive speculation and give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a bigger budget to prevent a replay of the Amaranth hedge fund collapse last year, which took a major toll on consumers, said the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations last Monday.

Congress needs to take steps to regulate all natural gas markets equally, impose a limit on traders’ positions, enforce the statutory prohibition against excessive speculation and give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) a bigger budget to prevent a replay of the Amaranth hedge fund collapse last year, which took a major toll on consumers, said the chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Monday.

Nicor Inc. and its former controller agreed Thursday to pay more than $10 million to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that they engaged in improper transactions, made material misrepresentations and failed to disclose material information regarding Nicor’s gas inventory in order to meet earnings targets and increase the company’s revenues under a performance-based rate (PBR) plan administered by the Illinois Commerce Commission.

Democrats late Wednesday opened debate on the Senate’s $60 billion tax reconciliation package by offering an amendment to impose a windfall profits tax on the earnings of major energy companies. Republicans responded in fiery opposition.

An independent oil and natural gas producer group called on Congress this week to reject proposals seeking to impose a tax on the excess profits of oil and natural gas companies.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Tuesday he would oppose a proposal to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies, but he called on major energy companies to voluntarily give a percentage of their past quarter’s earnings to fuel fund programs that supplement the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

Independent producers lambasted the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) plan to raise drilling fees and impose new permitting charges, saying it would increase consumer gas costs.

Even though the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has direct authority to impose its proposed “code of conduct” only on pipelines and LDCs and their affiliates by attaching it to blanket sales certificates, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) believes “this is a sufficiently large group of sellers of natural gas to warrant adoption of the rules…since many of the affiliates of interstate pipelines or LDCs are among the largest natural gas marketers in the nation” (RM03-10).

In the waning hours of its spring session, the Illinois legislature last week agreed to impose a 5% sales tax on natural gas bought out-of-state as part of its budget and tax package aimed at curing the state government deficit. The measure will mainly impact manufacturers, but the legislators modified the governor’s proposal by including several exemptions.