Voted

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted out a final ruleyesterday that will give property owners affected by proposedpipeline construction greater participation in the certificateprocess.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee last weekreadily voted out the renomination of Commissioner Curt Hebert Jr.to a new five-year term at the Federal Energy RegulatoryCommission. The reappointment is now headed to the full Senate,which could confirm it as early as this week.

Shareholders for Commonwealth Energy Systems and BEC Energy votedto approve their companies’ previously announced merger plans lastweek. The merger was first agreed to last December (See Daily GPI, Dec. 8, 1998). The new companywill be named NSTAR.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week voted out twokey companion orders whose objective is to minimize the threat of arepeat of price spikes in the electricity market in the near termand beyond.

The Pennsylvania Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Chester, PAMayor Aaron Wilson Jr. to the state Public Utility Commissionreplacing Commissioner John Hanger and effectively ending thatstate’s leadership toward substantive electric and natural gasderegulation. Only a handful of senators opposed the nomination.

The FERC majority voted yesterday to once again submerge itselfinto the “familiar, yet very rocky waters” of pipeline regulationon the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). Specifically, it initiated anotice of inquiry (NOI) into alternatives to the Commission’spresent method of exercising its jurisdiction over offshorepipelines.

A final rule voted out Wednesday by the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission sets June 1, 1999 as the date when allpipelines must provide all information and conduct all businessusing the public Internet and standardized protocols.

The British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) has voted downthe BC Gas Southern Crossing Pipeline, a $350 million pipeline thatwould have paralleled the existing BC Gas mainline in southernBritish Columbia between Yahk and Oliver.

One-call pipeline safety legislation moved much closer tobecoming law this week as the Senate voted to add it to omnibustransportation legislation and representatives Richard Hugh Baker(R-LA) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ) introduced a nearly identicalone-call bill in the House of Representatives. The Senate alreadyhas passed one-call as a stand alone bill (S. 1115) but includingit in the larger transportation package increases its chances ofbecoming law.