Murkowski pushes package of small energy bills

OREANDA-NEWS. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman Lisa Murkowski today rolled out a package of 17 modest energy bills she wants to include as part of a comprehensive energy package.

Among her bills are measures to direct the Department of Energy (DOE) to provide a clear definition of condensate and to notify Congress before conducting a test drawdown from the US' Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR).

Murkowski (R-Alaska) hopes to complete work this summer on what would be the first major energy bill since 2007 when Congress passed the Energy Independence and Security Act. She is soliciting ideas from other members that will address energy infrastructure, supply, efficiency and accountability concerns.

She plans to hold hearings on legislative proposals this month and begin considering individual bills in her committee in June.

Murkowski said she has no interest in cobbling together an energy package that will fail to attract broad, bipartisan support and die on the Senate floor.

"We have done enough messaging around these parts, of late," Murkowski said. "I want to make some actual changes to our energy policy. We have not done it since 2007."

Murkowski's bills cover a range of energy issues, from coordinating oversight of oil and gas activities with state regulators to streamlining permitting of electric transmission infrastructure. Other measures are designed to encourage testing of methane hydrates and development of hydropower, while placing new restrictions on DOE's loan program.

None of the bills in this package would force a major overhaul of the US' energy strategy.

But on 12 May, Murkowski plans to introduce a bill to sweep away the US' decades-old restrictions on crude exports. She has not decided whether to try to attach the crude export provision to the comprehensive bill.

The condensate bill would direct DOE to create a standard definition of condensate, noting that federal agencies have conflicting understandings of this designation. The provision would authorize DOE and the Interior Department to assess condensate separately from crude.

The measure also would codify the Department of Commerce's decision to define lightly processed condensate as a refined product and allow producers to freely export it.

Murkowski voiced concern that President Barack Obama's administration has signaled willingness to draw down oil from the 691mn bl SPR, the US' emergency oil stocks, if oil prices become uncomfortably high, rather than waiting for an actual supply She said the SPR is not a safety net the country should access "because we do not like what the price of oil is."

DOE in March 2014 conducted a test sale of oil from the SPR to assess the reserve's drawdown and distribution capabilities, selling nearly 5mn bl of sour crude at an average price of \$93.75/bl. The test revealed potential problems with pipeline capacity, storage space and availability of US-flagged vessels if an emergency drawdown were required.

Murkowski's bill would require that DOE notify Congress before conducting a test sale. And it would order up a study of the SPR to suggest changes to the oil stocks.

Another bill would direct the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management to coordinate with state officials to coordinate rules and processes governing oil and gas operations on federal lands.

She has legislation that would create an interagency team with members from nine federal agencies to streamline permitting of electric transmission projects. And she wants to require electric grid reliability coordinators to prepare a reliability impact statement assessing the effects of major federal rules on grid reliability.

The committee's ranking Democrat Maria Cantwell (Washington) unveiled her own electric grid modernization bill today that would double to \$200mn funding for non-cybersecurity grid reliability efforts.