Officials

Officials at Potomac Electric Power Co. (Pepco) would notconfirm nor deny a report in The Wall Street Journal yesterday thatPepco has made an offer to buy Delaware-based Conectiv Inc. for $2billion in cash and stock. A spokesman said it might be a good ideato check back with the Washington, D.C.-based utility next week.The Journal reported the deal would be announced within a few days.

Though they’ve been told again and again by state regulatoryofficials that a California crisis can’t happen in Texas, twoHouston lawmakers have filed legislation to expand the state’sauthority to limit electric deregulation, which begins on a pilotbasis in June. And in Oklahoma, legislators have decided topostpone deregulation for at least two years.

Though they’ve been told again and again by state regulatoryofficials that a California crisis can’t happen in Texas, twoHouston lawmakers filed legislation last week to expand the state’sauthority to limit electric deregulation, which begins on a pilotbasis in June. And in Oklahoma, legislators have decided topostpone deregulation for at least two years.

As soaring December bills for natural gas use hit the home frontin Illinois last week, city and state officials opened a broadinvestigation into the causes of skyrocketing prices and madeattempts to increase assistance to low-income households.

As the December bills for natural gas use hit the home front,city and state officials in Illinois, one of the hardest hit lastmonth, weatherwise, reacted with measures to increase low incomeassistance and investigate the cause of the high prices.

FERC Chairman James J. Hoecker held a teleconference lastThursday with officials from three trade associations representinginterstate pipelines, major producers and independent producers todiscuss spiraling natural gas prices.

FERC Chairman James J. Hoecker held a three-way teleconferenceThursday with officials from three trade associations representingpipelines, major producers and independent producers to discussspiraling natural gas prices.

California energy officials declared another power alert Mondayas statewide electricity reserves threatened to dip below 7% in theface of near-record cold weather power demand and more than 11,000MW out of service, about 4,000 MW of which were on an unplannedbasis. Part of the unplanned loss of generation capacity wasattributed to a transmission breakdown in the San Joaquin Valley onpart of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s system.

Georgia’s leading natural gas marketer, Georgia Natural Gas Co.,has been back-billing “several thousand” customers for charges thatdate back as far as a year, according to officials with the GeorgiaPublic Service Commission. That news comes as the PSC deferredconsideration of proposed new rules over billing by marketers untilNov. 20, which would require marketers to provide efficient billingto customers.