Victory

California’s major private-sector utilities won a victory of sorts from regulators Thursday, getting partial incentive rewards, totaling $82 million, for their energy efficiency programs. The four investor-owned utilities (IOU) had solicited more from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), which denied part of the joint request.

Oil and natural gas producers scored a major victory last Thursday when the House defeated a Democratic measure that would have forced them to either use their existing leases or lose them. The House did pass two energy bills before leaving for the week-long Fourth of July recess, one which requires the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to be more aggressive in its oversight of energy futures markets and another that would provide mass transit agencies with new funds to deal with skyrocketing gasoline and fuel prices.

Oil and natural gas producers scored a major victory Thursday when the House defeated a Democratic measure that would have forced them to either use their existing leases or lose them. The House did pass two energy bills before leaving for the Fourth of July recess, which require the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to be more aggressive in its regulation of energy futures markets and would provide mass transit agencies with new funds to deal with skyrocketing gasoline and fuel prices.

FERC scored a crucial victory earlier this week when a federal appeals court in Louisiana said it would not review the agency’s enforcement action against Energy Transfer Partners LP (ETP) on the grounds that it lacked jurisdiction to intervene in an ongoing agency matter.

Environmentalists notched another victory over older coal-fired generating facilities last Monday when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court decision that would require power plants making modifications to bring their entire facility up to new air pollution standards. The action by the highest court is the latest in a nearly 15-year-long battle by major electric utilities to escape installing expensive pollution control equipment when modifying existing plants.

The proposed Islander East Pipeline, which has been held up in an ongoing legal dispute with the state of Connecticut, won a key victory in the U.S. District Court of New Haven on March 23, but the battle is far from over.

The proposed Islander East Pipeline, which has been held up in an ongoing legal dispute with the state of Connecticut, won a key victory in the U.S. District Court of New Haven last Friday, but the battle is far from over.

The energy industry won a hard-fought victory Saturday when the Senate overwhelmingly approved legislation to open up parts of the natural gas-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas leasing. The vote came only hours after the House passed the measure Friday by 367-45 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 11).

In a key victory for Northern Natural Gas shippers, FERC has denied the interstate natural gas pipeline’s request to sell its West Hugoton gas pipeline facilities in Kansas and Oklahoma to a Midland, TX-based energy company.