Staffers

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) staffers planning to go Down Under over the holidays to escape talk of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports and their market impacts might want to reconsider. LNG and gas markets are a source of controversy in Australia, too.

The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) plans to hire 14 staffers to help implement revised energy rules taking effect in 2009. The nine-member regulatory agency is formally approving the rules this week, and most of them are expected to take effect in April and May — well past the original schedule.

Frustrated by inaction at the federal level on wholesale power price caps, California gubernatorial staffers Wednesday tossed their latest grenade on the public negotiations table by supporting a proposed state windfall electricity profits tax. They said Gov. Gray Davis will consider signing such a new law if it hits his desk. But they carefully drew short of saying categorically that the governor will sign a bill or that he is lobbying for one.

Two federal energy officials may have fed information on unpaidoil royalties that they obtained from producers underconfidentiality agreements to a Washington DC-based watchdog groupto use as ammunition against the producers in a “whistle-blower”lawsuit seeking recovery of back royalties in California. They mayalso have “steered the Department of Interior toward a [royalty]policy favorable” to certain parties, according to a report filedby an investigator with the General Accounting Office (GAO).

Energy guru and Pulitzer-prize winning author Daniel Yergin toldFederal Energy Regulatory Commission staffers there will still be aplace for the agency in the next millennium despite the fact themarketplace is taking “The Commanding Heights” away fromgovernments.