Unpaid

Eight years after an original royalties lawsuit was filed by the state of Alabama against predecessor company Exxon Corp. for unpaid gas royalties and three years after the verdict went against the company, ExxonMobil continues to argue that the $3.5 billion punitive damages award should be overturned.

Former energy industry and utility senior executive and unpaid adviser to the governor, Michael Peevey, was confirmed for a six-year appointment to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on a 32-3 vote of the 40-member state Senate. Governor Gray Davis reappointed Peevey to the regulatory commission on Dec. 31, 2002, designating him as president.

In the continuing string of unpaid power bills that sits at the heart of California’s lingering electricity crisis, the state association of independent power producers last Wednesday asked the state transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, to pay up. The nonprofit public benefits organization said that it is “working on it.”

Two federal energy officials may have fed information on unpaidoil royalties that they obtained from producers underconfidentiality agreements to a Washington D.C.-based watchdoggroup to use as ammunition against the producers in a”whistle-blower” lawsuit seeking recovery of back royalties inCalifornia. They may also have “steered the Department of Interiortoward a [royalty] policy favorable” to certain parties, accordingto a report by an investigator with the General Accounting Office(GAO) that was released last week.

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).