Protection

With energy traders and other companies becoming bigger credit risks, Natural Gas Pipeline Co. of America (NGPL) has proposed tariff changes to shield it from its transportation capacity being released by non-creditworthy shippers at cut-rate prices.

The American Gas Association (AGA) has found a lot to like about revisions announced Thursday by the Environmental Protection Agency in its New Source Review (NSR) program. The changes, EPA said, are aimed at clarifying and improving the operation of the rules for curbing pollution from energy and other production plants that are a source of emissions.

Even under the protection of Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy proceedings, April is still a month for shelling out tax payments. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. paid $67.8 million last Wednesday in property tax payments to the 49 counties in which it operates in the northern half of California. Combined with an additional $145 million the utility will pay in local franchise fees during the month, the company plans to distribute $212 million to California cities and counties by the end of April. The PG&E utility’s CEO Gordon Smith emphasized that the tax payments are part of the company’s role in helping “fund vital public services,” undoubtedly a fact the companies will stress in promoting their proposed reorganization of the utility in bankruptcy court, spinning off all the nondistribution operations. State officials are strongly opposing this, offering their alternative plan that would keep the utility intact. The major property tax payment by the utility was $11.6 million to San Luis Obispo County, along the central California coast where the PG&E Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generating Plant is located. That is more than double the next largest county payment, which was $5.3 million to Alameda County in the East San Francisco Bay..

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) last Monday took dead aim at press reports that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to roll out plans that will call for a shift away from using the stick of lawsuits to enforce clean air regulations in favor of a carrot-like approach that will urge electric utilities to voluntarily reduce toxic emissions.

The Justice Department and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Friday Williams’ Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line has agreed to extensive testing and clean-up for soil and groundwater contamination related to waste disposal at numerous compressor stations along its pipeline. In addition, the settlement with the company calls for Transco to clean up polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination, complete a storm water monitoring program, conduct storm water sampling at several compressor stations and pay a $1.4 million civil penalty. The settlement is the latest in a number of similar actions brought against interstate pipeline companies over the last 15 years.

Pending a major change in direction at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), natural gas investors could get an unwanted “coal-inscopy” next month, according to analyst Fred Schultz of Raymond James & Associates Inc. Coal-fired electric generation in the country could expand by up to 40,000 MW.

Pending a major change in direction at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), natural gas investors could get an unwanted “coal-inscopy” next month, according to analyst Fred Schultz of Raymond James & Associates Inc. Coal-fired electric generation in the country could expand by up to 40,000 MW.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman last week told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that it is premature to put in place new carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions restrictions on power plants. But the president’s plan will be designed to curb nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulfur dioxides (SO2) and mercury, she said. The administration’s proposed legislation also will strive to simplify the “complex web of existing regulations.”

El Paso Natural Gas has called on FERC Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner Jr. to take steps to prevent the further release to the media of “highly sensitive marketing materials” that it has been required to turn over as part of discovery in a complaint case brought against it.