Urging

The American Gas Association (AGA) sent a letter to U.S. senators Tuesday urging opposition to an expected amendment to the energy bill from Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) that would to remove Sec. 105. The section calls for a Comprehensive Inventory of Outer Continental Self (OCS) Oil and Natural Gas Resources.

Senate Democrats Tom Daschle (D-SD), Jeff Bingman (D-NM) and John Breaux (D-LA) are urging the Bush administration to reconsider its opposition to the natural gas price-floor tax subsidy provision for Alaska producers in the Senate energy bill and the mandated southern route for the Alaska pipeline. Without these measures the Alaska pipeline will not be built, the Democrats said in a letter to Bush.

Several Pacific Northwest lawmakers are urging FERC to stop pursuing its proposed standard market design (SMD) for U.S. wholesale electricity markets, saying that Congress hasn’t given the federal agency the green light to pursue such an undertaking and arguing that the proposal does not take into account the distinct nature of the Northwest’s energy grid.

UBS AG is urging FERC to approve a recent filing made by Bank of America (BofA) that would, among other things, allow BofA to sell electricity at market-based rates.

At the urging of U.S. Rep. William J. Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ) and 22 other House lawmakers, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has agreed to carry out another review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to assess how the agency’s deregulation activities and its failure to properly oversee energy companies have directly affected consumers.

At the urging of Congressman Paul Gillmor (R-OH), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) last Thursday said that he is sending investigators next week to FirstEnergy Corp.’s Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio, which is already under scrutiny from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after the plant’s operator discovered major corrosion on the plant’s reactor head.

British Columbia’s natural gas pipeline grid is seeking to raise its tolls by up to 19% and is urging regulators and the rest of the industry to tackle a lingering Canadian headache with potential to increase costs further. Westcoast Energy Inc., soon to be subsidiary of Duke Energy under a takeover transaction scheduled to close shortly, has applied to the National Energy Board for the raise in the new year.

At the direct urging of Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) did a complete about-face Tuesday and suspended formal mark-ups of comprehensive energy legislation and a national energy security bill for this session of Congress, in favor of a stripped down set of only the most critical issues.

Despite strong urging from natural gas distributors, the regional Northwest Power Planning Council in Portland, OR, is expected later this month to draw short of stepping up the region’s push for faster natural gas conversions by end-users, letting market forces decide. Meanwhile, the council is keeping a close eye on the extremely low hydro situation, whose impact has been eased by a combination of emergency generation units and shutdown of major industrial plants.