Opposed

The Florida Association of Convention and Visitors Bureaus, which has long opposed offshore drilling, conditionally endorsed federal and state policies allowing the production of oil and natural gas from existing leases within the Gulf of Mexico at least 30 miles from the Florida coastline. The conditions include: Florida offshore drilling must be a component of a comprehensive energy policy; production facilities must incorporate the most advanced zero-discharge systems; Congress must allow for sharing of royalties between states and the federal government; a five-year moratorium on new leases in the eastern Gulf must be established so state officials can evaluate production safety and evaluate any impact on Florida’s natural resources; and the military mission of the Defense Department shall have the first priority in the Gulf offshore.

President Bush Wednesday signed into law energy legislation (HR 6) that focuses on conserving energy and the production of renewable fuels as opposed to the development of traditional oil and natural gas resources. The president’s action comes one day after Congress voted out the measure.

The city of Boston, in a late motion filed at FERC, said it opposed a proposal by Tennessee Gas Pipeline to build a nearly eight-mile pipeline expansion that would provide additional capacity to transport regasified gas from a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Everett, MA.

The oil and gas title of the Senate omnibus energy bill would spur development of natural gas storage, accelerate interstate pipeline projects, give sole siting authority over liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities to FERC and promote the sharing of Outer Continental Shelf (OCS ) revenues with coastal states.

A bipartisan group of senators led by Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Elizabeth Dole (R-NC) is opposed to opening up restricted areas of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and natural gas exploration as part of upcoming omnibus energy legislation.

With New Mexico state leaders on record as strongly opposed, a long federal review process is now under way on Houston-based El Paso Corp.’s plans to drill for coal-bed methane in a pristine national forest region in the north-northeast part of the state. Even with political help from the White House, El Paso has indicated in some local news reports that it may not be interested in pursuing drilling leases.

The local outpouring of about 900 citizens, two-thirds of which opposed the idea of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal, prompted San Jose, CA-based Calpine Corp. last Wednesday to drop its plans for studying the feasibility of a LNG import terminal and other facilities in the far northern end of California in Humboldt Bay.

Buyers and sellers of natural gas during the California energy crisis are opposed to a FERC staff proposal that would establish a new formula for calculating spot gas prices to be used in assessing the refund obligation of electricity generators. They asked the full Commission to reject staff’s proposed method, arguing that it had failed to show delivered gas prices to the state during the 2000-2001 period — which were based on published price indices — had been artificially inflated as a result of manipulation.

A producer-marketer group has called on FERC to “reject and totally disregard” Southwest Gas Corp.’s emergency plea for a five-month extension of the deadline to convert full-requirements (FR) transportation service on El Paso Natural Gas to contract demand (CD) service. But Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM), who like Southwest Gas is an FR shipper, believes that deferring the conversion from Nov. 1 to April 2003 is the right thing to do to protect gas customers in the southwestern region next winter.