Proposes

Duke Energy Monday offered to manage San Diego Gas andElectric’s entire power supply in its comments to the FederalEnergy Regulatory Commission on proposals for solving California’snagging wholesale electricity problems. There are no negotiationsongoing, and SDG&E initially indicated it has not received anyformal offer from Duke.

FERC Chairman James J. Hoecker last week proposed that state andfederal regulators work together to ensure that regionaltransmission organizations (RTOs) result in healthy regionalelectricity markets.

The National Energy Marketers Association’s (NEM) executivecommittee will vote on a final draft of a National EnergyTechnology Policy at the group’s Industry Leadership Roundtable onOct. 30 and 31 in The Woodlands, TX in an attempt to implementuniform internet standards and tax incentives to upgrade the U.S.energy infrastructure.

PNM, or Public Service Company of New Mexico, has asked stateregulators to accept a negotiated settlement raising rates 3.7% forresidential customers and 7% for larger customers and resolving ayears-long dispute that has wound its way through two regulatorycommissions and the state supreme court.

Rather than “blaming just about everyone and everything” for thereliability problems on the electric transmission grid, SenateEnergy Chairman Frank Murkowski (R-AK) last week urged EnergySecretary Bill Richardson to take “immediate and meaningful action”to address the situation in the short term, while Congress tries towork out a longer term solution.

California’s leading state legislator for energy issues and thechief architect of its 1996 electricity restructuring law last weekdeclared the state’s electricity market as “not workablycompetitive” and urged that state energy authorities re-establishprice caps at their original levels to mitigate against extremeprice spikes when the weather heats up.

Natural Gas Pipeline Company of America (NGPL) is seeking agreen light to sell off 110 miles of offshore supply laterals andcertain abandoned, retired facilities in the Gulf of Mexico toGreen Canyon Pipe Line Co. LLC for an estimated $1.3 million.

Enron Corp.’s Northern Natural Gas has proposed an optional one-part volumetric firm throughput service (VFT) under which customers would only pay for the service they use and would share the risk of weather-related volatility with the pipeline.

Enron Corp.’s Northern Natural Gas has proposed an optionalone-part volumetric firm throughput service (VFT) under whichcustomers would only pay for the service they use and would sharethe risk of weather-related volatility with the pipeline.