Split

In a split decision Tuesday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request to expand an injunction that would have prevented coalbed methane (CBM) development on additional lands in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) split the baby on the controversial question of drilling on the Roan Plateau in Colorado with a decision allowing carefully programmed drilling on less than half, or about 34,000 acres, of the plateau area. The decision set aside about 17,000 acres with the restriction of no surface occupancy and proposed that the ban be extended to another 21,000 acres in special areas it has labeled as environmentally critical.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) split the baby on the controversial question of drilling on the Roan Plateau in Colorado with a decision, issued last Friday, allowing carefully programmed drilling on less than half, or about 34,000 acres, of the plateau area. The decision set aside about 17,000 acres with the restriction of no surface occupancy and proposed that the ban be extended to another 21,000 acres in special areas it has labeled as environmentally critical.

On a split vote and with a relatively large amount of discussion, the five-member California Public Utilities Commission, minus one of its commissioners, voted 3-1 Thursday to approve an expanded natural gas hedging program for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The continuing concern over the impact of rising wholesale prices for natural gas in the wake of the two Gulf Coast hurricanes was a strong focus of both the action and discussion.

Following last week’s split city council vote affirming negotiations, talks will get under way “soon” between proponents of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the Port of Long Beach, CA, and the city’s energy department, the COO for Mitsubishi’s U.S. Sound Energy Solutions (SES) subsidiary, Tom Giles, said during a brief interview Monday with NGI.

Before a packed chamber split about equally between opponents and supporters, the Long Beach, CA, City Council just past midnight Wednesday morning voted 5-4 to continue discussions with proponents of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the city’s harbor. As a result, the city municipal energy department will resume talks that were cut off more than a year ago for a pipeline and LNG supplies from the proposed plant for the city’s natural gas distribution utility.

Before a packed chamber split about equally between opponents and supporters, the Long Beach, CA, City Council just past midnight Wednesday morning voted 5-4 to continue discussions with proponents of a liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminal in the city’s harbor. As a result, the city municipal energy department will resume talks that were cut off more than a year ago for a pipeline and LNG supplies from the proposed plant for the city’s natural gas distribution utility.

With the stark animosity that has come to mark the split among its five members, the hardened majority at the California Public Utilities Commission Thursday rejected an outgoing commissioner’s allegations that a state-conducted probe proved Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. utility conspired to drive up wholesale natural gas prices at the Arizona border in the 2000-2001 western energy crisis.

As the deeply split state regulatory commission was holding its last acrimonious meeting Thursday, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his choices for two seats on the five-member California Public Utilities Commission that become vacant the end of this month. The governor has chosen an energy efficiency advocate and a Silicon Valley-based entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist.