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Power companies would have to report changes in status related to their market-based rate authority within 30 days after such an event, according to a proposed rule issued by federal regulators last week. Utilities now face the very real possibility that they will no longer have the option of waiting for up to three years to report such status changes to FERC.

ISO New England (ISO-NE) has just over a week to respond to a detailed Feb. 5 subpoena issued by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal that asks the electric grid operator to submit, among other things, bidding-related data as the state attorney general continues to probe generator activity during several bitterly cold days last month.

FPL Energy last week concluded that small boron deposits on the reactor vessel head of the 1,161 MW Seabrook nuclear power plant in New Hampshire resulted from a leaking weld, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said last Wednesday.

Aquila Inc. last week said that its near-term liquidity won’t be affected as a result of MEP Pleasant Hill LLC’s defaulting on $270 million of construction loans that were used to fund construction of a 580 MW, gas-fired combined cycle power plant located near Pleasant Hill, MO. Aquila holds a 50% interest in MEP Pleasant Hill.

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Thursday fine-tuned his message on liquefied natural gas (LNG) in his second appearance before Congress in less than a month, saying that the United States at a minimum ought to have a “standby LNG system” in place to lessen price volatility in the domestic gas market. But he signaled that the nation should work in the longer term to eliminate it as a back-up by producing “far more” domestic gas supplies.

NRG Energy and more than a dozen lenders will continue talks tied to NRG’s efforts to meet a $1.3 billion collateral payment and a related plan developed by the financially wounded unit of Xcel Energy to raise much needed funds.

Following the roller-coaster ride that crude oil prices have been experiencing over the past few weeks, Salomon Smith Barney’s Robert Morris said that crude prices continue to be the “fulcrum” for exploration and production company stock performance. The analyst pointed out that E&P shares extended their retreat two weeks ago as both crude oil and natural gas prices dropped sharply.

Among the many lessons to be learned from California’s energy debacle is that restructuring has a better chance of succeeding when more of the power in a market is free to respond to price signals, according to a recent report issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) examining the causes and lessons of California’s electricity crisis.

Congressional passage of President Bush’s energy initiatives, as well as expanded free trade authority, will have a “great bearing” on the nation’s economy this year and beyond, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech Monday to the Southern Governors’ Association (SGA).