Wants

The San Diego attorney spearheading a high-profile class action lawsuit aimed at Dynegy and four other merchant generators selling in California’s wholesale power market Tuesday told the San Diego Union-Tribune in a news report that the state’s energy consumers would be better served by Enron Corp. going into bankruptcy rather than being rescued in a merger.

Richard Riordan, a leading Republican candidate for governor and former mayor of Los Angeles, last week lashed out at Calfironia’s Gov. Gray Davis for allegedly mishandling the state’s ongoing energy crisis and injecting the state into too strong a role within the electricity industry.

Support for a Mackenzie River Valley natural gas pipeline through the Northwest Territories made the news again last week, as aboriginal interests — considered key to any plan — began signaling their approval to begin construction of a pipe through their lands (see Daily GPI, Oct. 11) . While the producers group touted the support of the Acho Dene Koe in its carefully detailed memorandum of understanding (MOU) to back a C$3 billion pipe, still another group, composed of development corporations and businesses — no producers — emerged on Thursday offering a 100% aboriginal ownership of any pipe built.

Although it wants more than book value for its transmission assets if the state buys them, Southern California Edison Co. said it tentatively supports the latest California legislative proposal to restore the utility’s financial standing. Speaking at a state Assembly hearing, an Edison senior executive said that with some modification the proposal could restore the utility’s creditworthiness.

In a draft proposal released Friday, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) said it wants to hold 20 oil and natural gas lease sales in the federal Outer Continental Shelf between 2002 and 2007. The “Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program” will be officially published in today’s Federal Register, but an advance look suggests sales in the Gulf of Mexico’s Western, Central and parts of the Eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

In a draft proposal released Friday, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) said it wants to hold 20 oil and natural gas lease sales in the federal Outer Continental Shelf between 2002 and 2007. The “Draft Proposed Outer Continental Shelf Oil & Gas Leasing Program” will be officially published in today’s Federal Register, but an advance look suggests sales in the Gulf of Mexico’s Western, Central and parts of the Eastern planning areas, as well as Alaska’s Beaufort Sea, Norton Basin, Cook Inlet/Shelikof Strait and the Chukchi Sea/Hope Basin.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission wants the natural gas and electric markets to “know that we are watching” them, said Chairman Curt Hebert yesterday during a press tour of FERC’s new Market Observation Resource Center (MOR) at its headquarters.

As a clear signal that the state legislature still wants to weigh in with a broad-based settlement to California’s electricity crisis, state regulators Tuesday canceled a special meeting to vote on suspending direct access retail competition at the urging of state officials, including the Department of Water Resources (DWR), which is buying all of the power for financially crippled private sector utilities. The California Public Utilities Commission will reconsider the issue in mid-August, the drop-dead deadline for a legislative solution that will prevent a second major utility from falling into bankruptcy.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) wants answers from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) about Morgan Stanley’s purchase of long-term transmission capacity owned by BPA’s transmission line. Among other things, the Oregon lawmaker argues in a recent letter to BPA’s acting administrator that Morgan Stanley’s utilization of only a small fraction of the capacity it purchased could be a sign that the financial services company is attempting to exert market power.