Passing

While the United States has failed to develop a comprehensive energy strategy in recent years, the world is passing it by with growing energy demand from such fast-developing nations as China putting a premium on supplies and threatening America’s economic and national security, R. Bruce Josten, Executive Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told a “State of the Energy Industry 2005” roundtable in Washington Tuesday.

Alaska’s natural gas producers and TransCanada Corp. gave high marks Tuesday to Congress for pushing through legislation to award $18 billion in federal loan guarantees for the construction of a mega-gas pipeline from the North Slope to the Lower 48 states, to provide tax incentives for the pipeline, and to expedite and streamline the permitting process (see Daily GPI, Oct. 12).

Passing without much fanfare, the release of the Energy Information Administration’s natural gas storage report was no match for changing forecasts for Hurricane Ivan’s path. The National Hurricane Center has sharply altered its path projections for the category four hurricane at least three times.

Independent oil and natural gas producers gave high marks to the House Resources Committee for passing two bipartisan bills last week that would reform the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act (ESA), placing a heavier burden on the federal government to show a species is endangered before actually listing it and foreclosing its habitat to development.

As the prospects for Congress passing a broad energy bill this year grow dim, Reps. Edward Markey (D-MA) and Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) last Wednesday introduced separate legislation aimed at bolstering the reliability of the electricity grid and easing run-away energy prices.

The Senate leadership on Thursday was considering a Democratic-initiated proposal to substitute last year’s energy bill — which passed the Senate by a vote of 88-11 in April 2002 — for the current energy bill and pass it before leaving for the August recess (see Daily GPI, April 26, 2002).

Although no one is willing to bet on its becoming law, the legislative proposal to rescue Southern California Edison Co. Friday was rested in place at a state Assembly appropriations committee, which will resume making technical amendments to it Tuesday after Labor Day. A vote by the full lower house of the legislature could come late Tuesday or Wednesday.

Sounding more embittered and hair-trigger-happy with each passing press conference, California’s governor Tuesday continued to draw a line in the sand at $8.9 billion for power supplier refunds at the same time standing ready to negotiate with individual suppliers or small groups for portions of that amount in cash or future price discounts or power contract renegotiations.

Liquefied natural gas for the U.S. market is becoming more viable with each passing week, and now, a Houston-based company has firmed up its plans to build the first of three Gulf Coast receiving terminals, while an international company announced it is negotiating with several U.S. buyers for its future Egyptian LNG supplies.