Urges

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) on Friday asked FERC to strip Reliant of its authority to sell energy at market-based rates, saying that recently released transcripts of traders at the energy company show evidence of “fraud and manipulation” of the Western power markets during the region’s energy crisis of 2000-2001.

The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners has ratified a resolution calling on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider its recent decision removing the five-year cap that limited the length of contract term that an existing shipper must match in order renew an expiring pipeline contract under the right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) process (see NGI, Nov. 4). The action came at the group’s annual meeting in Chicago last week.

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners is expected to vote Wednesday to ratify a resolution approved by its gas committee and board of directors earlier in the week, calling on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider its recent decision removing the five-year cap that limited the length of contract term that an existing shipper must match in order renew an expiring pipeline contract under the right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) process (see Daily GPI, Oct. 31).

In the first action of its kind, a Denver, CO-based marketer is challenging the right of an interstate natural gas pipeline to demand up-front payment of collateral equal to a full year of reservation charges from shippers that are perceived to be potential credit risks.

In the first action of its kind, a Denver, CO-based marketer is challenging the right of an interstate natural gas pipeline to demand up-front payment of collateral equal to a full year of reservation charges from shippers that are perceived to be potential credit risks.

The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) on Friday strongly encouraged investor-owned electric utilities and generators to hash out their differences over possible changes to the state’s generation bid rules and reach a compromise that would be presented to the PSC for further consideration in early September. If such a compromise is not reached, the PSC is expected to move forward with suggestions from PSC staff to begin a formal rulemaking process on changes to the bid rules.

Elizabeth Moler, former FERC chair and now senior vice-president at Exelon, last Wednesday urged the Commission to start providing some certainty in the area of regional transmission organization (RTO) formation, noting that several utilities are drawing a line in the sand on spending more money on RTO-related development until that certainty is offered.

While there have been a “dismaying number of reports of improprieties at energy companies” over the past months, natural gas local distribution companies (LDCs) have been “neither the focus nor the cause of [the] attention-grabbing headlines,” the American Gas Association (AGA) told FERC last Wednesday.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has called on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to pay close attention to natural gas traded between November 2000 and May 2001 as it continues to investigate allegedly fraudulent and manipulative trading practices in California and other western energy markets during the critical 2000-2001 period.