Introduced

Alaska Gov. Tony Knowles introduced legislation to authorize the Alaska Railroad Corp. to issue $17 billion in tax-exempt bonds to finance the proposed Alaska Highway natural gas pipeline. The bill states that building a gas pipeline is an essential purpose of the state and critical to the state’s health and welfare.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) introduced legislation last week to create a multi-billion-dollar fund to help the new Office of Homeland Security, in cooperation with the departments of energy, commerce and interior, in its effort to protect the nation’s physical energy assets and domestic supply from disruption due to terrorist attacks.

A House Resources Committee bill was introduced Tuesday that would offer producers additional incentives to squeeze out every last drop of oil and natural gas from the maturer regions of the Gulf of Mexico. It would keep intact the moratoria that currently exists for the other Outer Continental Shelf regions in the United States, but it would open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling.

Rep. Robert Matsui (D-CA) last week introduced an energy tax bill as a companion to the comprehensive energy legislation that was unveiled by Senate Democrats earlier this year. The Energy Security and Tax Incentive Policy Act proposes a number of tax incentives and credits to spur the construction of new interstate electric and natural gas transmission facilities — notably an Alaska pipeline — and more gas distribution lines, as well as additional gathering to promote development in remote areas.

Rep. Robert Matsui (D-CA) last week introduced an energy tax bill as a companion to the comprehensive energy legislation that was unveiled by Senate Democrats earlier this year.

Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) introduced last week the first bipartisan legislation aimed at restoring price stability and reliability in the western electricity and natural gas markets.

New York State Assemblyman James F. Brennan (D-Brooklyn) last week introduced legislation calling for the creation of a New York City public electric power system that would repurchase power plants previously sold by Consolidated Edison (ConEd) to several unregulated companies.

Initiatives in companion energy bills introduced last week by Senate Democrats seeking to reinstitute cost-of-service (COS) rates for wholesale power sales in western markets and rate caps on secondary natural gas transportation to California have raised red flags in both the electric and gas industries.

Leading Senate Democrats yesterday introduced two major bills -one addresses supply and demand policy shifts, while the otherproposes a mix of tax incentives – to tackle the escalatingproblems in the nation’s energy sectors.