Reelection

A coalition of New York landowners that supports natural gas development has endorsed a slate of candidates — all of them Republicans — for election to state office.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. shareholders jettisoned two board members up for reelection and approved three shareholder-initiated resolutions at the company’s annual meeting in Oklahoma City, signaling a turning point for the operator’s corporate governance and likely for the future of CEO Aubrey McClendon.

Chesapeake Energy Corp. shareholders on Friday soundly rejected two board members up for reelection and approved three shareholder-initiated resolutions at the company’s annual meeting in Oklahoma City, signaling a turning point for the operator’s corporate governance and likely for the future of CEO Aubrey McClendon.

Pennsylvania state Sen. Mary Jo White recently said she would not seek reelection this year after 14 years in office. The Republican from Venango County in northwestern Pennsylvania has chaired the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee for the past 12 years, placing her in the middle of the current debate over Marcellus Shale legislation. Under her watch, the committee crafted an impact fee on unconventional natural gas drilling (see Shale Daily, Jun 15, 2011) and increased coordination between gas drilling and coal mining (see Shale Daily, May 17, 2011). Before running for office, White served as a public defender in Venango and worked as the vice president of environmental and governmental affairs for Quaker State Corp.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), former chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, has announced that he will not seek reelection in 2012 after serving 32 years in Congress. Frank, 71, and former Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-CT) co-wrote and shepherded the sweeping Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act through Congress last year. President Obama signed the legislation into law in July 2010 (see NGI, July 26, 2010). Earlier this year, he opposed Republicans’ efforts to water down the financial reform law by cutting the budgets of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission, the two agencies tasked with enforcing the stricter law. Frank was instrumental in getting Hess LNG to withdraw its proposal to build the controversial Weaver’s Cove liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal in Fall River, MA. The company withdrew its application in June in response to the opposition from a number of congressional, state and local officials (see NGI, June 20).

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), former chairman of the powerful House Financial Services Committee, announced Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2012 after serving 32 years in Congress.

Supporters of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection bid were more optimistic Friday after the Alaska Division of Elections revealed that besides the more than 11,000 absentee ballots that have come in so far, there are an additional 8,000-plus questioned ballots still to be counted in the Republican primary race Aug. 23 in which Tea Party candidate Joe Miller won the initial precinct count by 1,668 votes (see Daily GPI, Aug. 27).

Two major pieces of legislation are likely to become law before members of this Congress go home for the closing rounds of their reelection campaigns, and neither of them is climate change. “DEAD, that’s D-E-A-D,” is how a veteran lobbyist described the legislation to a Process Gas Consumers (PGC) post-GasMart luncheon in Chicago Wednesday at the same time the latest climate change version was being introduced in the Senate (see related story).

When Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski was defeated in his bid for reelection last year, many knew it was game over for the old-line producers that had been negotiating behind the scenes on building a natural gas pipeline across the state. With the arrival of new politicians, however, new industry players also are arriving on the scene, and two last week offered their support for Gov. Sarah Palin’s revamped pipe proposal.