Threatens

The energy industry is at the “dawning of the natural gas era,” but “federal regulatory overreach” threatens to crimp development of the Lone Star State’s gas and oil reserves, attendees at the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute’s (TCCRI) Houston Energy Summit were told Thursday.

Marcellus Shale drillers in Pennsylvania will gain a sympathetic ear in January when Gov.-elect Tom Corbett takes office.

Unprecedented energy development across parts of the West now threatens 10 of the most important fish and wildlife habitats on U.S. public land, according to Sportsmen for Responsible Energy, a coalition led by the National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership.

The emergence of gas shale plays has been a game-changer for the industry and the outlook for gas supply. The scale of the shales is so great that it threatens the survival of the “individual wildcatter,” who with only a half-dozen employees drilling a few dozen wells a year will find it difficult to compete, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey K. McClendon said last Thursday.

The emergence of gas shale plays has been a game-changer for the industry and the outlook for gas supply. The scale of the shales is so great that it threatens the survival of the “individual wildcatter,” who with only a half-dozen employees drilling a few dozen wells a year will find it difficult to compete, Chesapeake Energy Corp. CEO Aubrey K. McClendon said Thursday.

As the White House threatens to veto the multi-billion-dollar farm bill, the House-Senate conference committee is nearing approval of the legislation that includes a provision to close the so-called “Enron Loophole,” which has for years exempted large electronic trading platforms from the oversight of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The North American gas transmission and distribution (T&D) industry looks healthy for the rest of this year and into 2008, but the credit crunch threatens to slow down capital spending and the acquisition market, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The prolonged legislative stalemate that has left California without a budget six weeks after the July 1 deadline threatens to prevent any other legislation from being passed this session, which is slated to end in early September, leaving several major energy proposals to be taken up next year.

A statewide November California ballot measure aimed at curbing eminent domain powers (Proposition 90) threatens to have “significant impacts” on the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the private-sector utilities that it regulates, CPUC President Michael Peevey said Thursday during a review of the measure by the regulatory panel’s chief counsel.