Passed

The Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA) was passed by the state’s House and Senate finance committees with relatively minor changes late Thursday, and Gov. Sarah Palin said she was optimistic the bill would pass the Legislature with most of the original language intact. Floor votes on both bills were expected on Friday.

The CEO of an Anchorage, AK-based energy services firm, VECO Corp., and another company official pleaded guilty Monday to bribery and conspiracy charges arising from a federal probe into public corruption of Alaska politicians.

As part of a full year-end consent agenda, California regulators Thursday quietly passed a number of items that in the past have drawn a lot of discussion — the leading one being technical changes to the massive 10-year California Solar Initiative (CSI) to bolster small, onsite distributed solar systems. At issue was cutting the program’s overall budget from around $3 billion to less than $2.5 billion. The effort is supposed to produce “a million solar roofs” with photovoltaic (PV) systems and 3,000 MW of solar-produced electricity.

Just 24 hours after the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006 (H.R. 5782) (see Daily GPI, Dec. 7), the U.S. Senate on Thursday evening followed suit by unanimous voice vote.

Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich last Thursday vetoed legislation passed by state lawmakers that, among other things, would limit pending power rate hikes for Baltimore Gas & Electric (BGE) customers to 15% through May 31, 2007 and fire the current set of commissioners at the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC).

California’s lower house state Assembly Thursday passed a comprehensive energy efficiency bill that would force both private and public sector utilities to meet accelerated statewide goals for increasing energy-saving programs. The vote was 57-18 for AB 2021, pushed by Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, chair of the Assembly’s Utilities and Commerce Committee.

A stand-alone bill to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to oil and gas drilling passed the U.S. House Thursday on a vote of 225 to 201.

An unconventional gas bounty has pushed Wyoming to No. 3 among natural gas producers, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Ranked by marketed production, Wyoming is now the third largest gas producing state in the country, according to the Energy Information Administration.