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Based on interviews with Wall Street analysts the Department of Energy’s (DOE) inspector general Friday cleared FERC Chairman Pat Wood and Commissioner Nora Brownell of revealing during a conference call with the analysts how they would vote in high-profile western power contract cases, although he said he had “no way of confirming” that since no transcripts of the call were made. He recommended that the agency record or transcribe any conference calls to avoid similar questions in the future.

Energy trading companies should leap into action with “an aggressive compliance program in-house,” including a regimen of standards and procedures to weed out unacceptable market behavior, a veteran attorney in the regulatory arena told the mid-year meeting of the Energy Bar Association.

Energy trading companies should leap into action with “an aggressive compliance program in-house,” including a regimen of standards and procedures to weed out unacceptable market behavior, a veteran attorney in the regulatory arena told the mid-year meeting of the Energy Bar Association.

Agreeing that Georgia’s natural gas deregulation program is flawed but not foundering, a Blue Ribbon Natural Gas Task Force empowered by Gov. Roy Barnes recommended last week that the state not give up on the more than three year-old initiative. Instead, the group decided on a list of proposals to reform the program, including the reinstitution of a single regulated marketer.

An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with the California PublicUtilities Commission (CPUC) has recommended the Commission approvean emergency motion by Southern California Edison to freeze theformula for avoided cost payments to qualifying facilities at theAugust rate of $4.5133/MMBtu, rather than post the September rateof $6.4567.

A California Public Utility Commission administrative law judgehas recommended approval of the proposed Pacific Enterprises-EnovaCorp. merger, citing potential savings of $288 million spread overfive years and divided equally between ratepayers and shareholders.