PSNC Energy, the Triangle's natural gas utility, is planning to raise rates by 8 precent effective May 1. The change would raise a typical residential bill by about $1 a month.

The Gastonia-based company today told the N.C. Utilities Commission it needs to increase rates to cover the rising wholesale cost of natural gas. Under state law, utilities can pass on their fuel purchase costs to customers as long as the companies prudently negotiate fuel contracts with suppliers.

The change is expected to be approved by the Utilities Commission and will raise PSNC's summer rate from 92 cents a therm to $1 a therm, a unit of heat measure. A typical residential bill, reflecting a monthly average of 16 therms of fuel, will increase from about $15 to $16.

PSNC has nearly 500,000 customers in the state. In the past year, PSNC has raised rates once to reflect its wholesale gas costs.

North Carolina's lobbying group for the politically influential oil-and-gas industry is getting a new executive director for the first time in nearly four decades.

The leadership change at the N.C. Petroleum Council comes at a time that state lawmakers are debating fracking, the most contentious energy policy in at least a half-century.

David McGowan, 33, a lobbyist for the N.C. Association of Realtors, will replace Bill Weatherspoon, who retired last month after 39 years on the job. Weatherspoon turns 70 on Tuesday.

The Petroleum Council, a one-man shop that hires contract lobbyists as needed, is the state office of the American Petroleum Institute, the nation's voice of big oil and natural gas.

A Durham nonprofit alleges that Republican enthusiasm for fracking is being bankrolled by the oil-and-gas industry and should be investigated by the state Attorney General.

The complaint filed by Food & Water Watch doesn't cite actual illegalities or violations, acknowledges the organization's senior organizer Renée Maas. It's not clear if the object of requested investigation should be state officials or industry executives.

The AG's office has not responded to the allegations raised in the complaint, which was filed last week, Maas said.

A study group of the N.C. Mining & Energy Commission is meeting in Sanford on Friday morning to begin work on one of the most emotional property-rights issues related to fracking: forced pooling.

Compulsory Pooling Study Group's assignment is to come up with recommendations on whether North Carolina should require property owners to lease their land to fracking operations if a majority of neighbors have leased their land to energy developers.

The study group will submit its recommendations to the Mining & Energy Commission, which has an Oct. 1 deadline to report back to the state legislature. The legislature last summer imposed a 2-year moratorium on fracking until the Mining & Energy Commission formulates regulations and conducts studies on fracking, a controversial natural gas extraction method that has never been done in this state.

PSNC Energy, the Triangle's natural gas utility, is adding public pumps for drivers of compressed natural gas vehicles that will make the Triangle relatively navigable for the cleanest cars in the world. By the end of next year the company could have as many as nine public stations selling natural gas for cars and trucks.

PSNC, with about 490,000 natural gas customers in the state, as recently as last year had just one public station that sold the vehicle fuel, commonly known as CNG. Meanwhile, Charlotte-based Piedmont Natural Gas, the state's biggest natural gas utility, is expanding its three CNG stations to eight by next year.

Cars that run on CNG are typically ranked cleaner than electric cars because much of the nation's electricity is still generated by burning coal.

PSNC has had a CNG station at its Gastonia headquarters for years and had as many as three operating stations in 2000. But most fell into disrepair and disuse over the years because of lack of interest. But that's changing.

North Carolina's new Mining & Energy Commission is likely to receive plenty of unsolicited advice on how to safely manage fracking in this state as the panel undertakes its mission of writing regulations and reports for the state legislature.

One of the more ambitious contributions will come from Research Triangle Environmental Health Collaborative. The local non-profit organization is planning a two-day symposium next month on the public health effects of fracking, wtih plans to produce a report and conclusions for state lawmakers, public officials as well as members of the Mining & Energy Commission.

For its part, the commission is holding its first meeting today for planning and orientation purposes. But  some of the commission's 15 members have already accepted invitations to the health collaborative's symposium, scheduled for Oct. 2-3.

The collaborative meeting is open by invitation only to about 150 people who are expected to attend. It will break off three working groups to address separate health aspects of fracking, an industry shorthand for hydraulic fracturing.

A pair of national professional organizations for geologists and hydrologists are hosting a symposium in Raleigh this summer on two hot topics: shale gas and fracking.

The two-day symposium sponsored by the American Ground Water Trust and the Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists will cover a range of issues, including regulation, litigation, economics, social impacts and environmental risks of natural gas exploration in shale rock formations.

"Presenters will come from many backgrounds," said Richard Kolb, senior geologist at Duncklee & Dunham, an environmental consulting firm in Cary. "We are inviting speakers to what we plan to be a set of balanced presentations, not 'lobbying' one way or the other for shale gas, but instead to present all sides of the technology and the challenges it presents to North Carolinians."
 

The N.C. Attorney General today issued a lengthy list of warnings and recommendations designed to protect the public from being exploited by the fracking industry.

The AG is urging the state legislature to approve the proposed safeguards if lawmakers proceed with legalizing fracking in this state, as some are vowing to do.

The provisions are intended to protect the public from high-pressure sales tactics, adverse financial impacts, property damage and other risks the public is typically exposed to but unaware of.

Or think of it as the Surgeon General's warning label for fracking: "There are risks to neighbors, communities and the State itself," the AG's report declares.

The state Attorney General's office estimates that around 400 to 500 homes have been sold in North Carolina in recent years stripped of legal rights to drill and frack for natural gas under the properties.

The homebuilder, D.R. Horton, this week notified state officials it would return those rights to any homeowner who requests it. The company did an about-face amid a public outcry and twin state reviews of its practice. Many of the affected homes were sold throughout the Triangle.

D.R. Horton's policies of systematically stripping drilling rights is under review by the state AG's Consumer Protection Division and by the N.C. Real Estate Commission. Both agencies are now tracking the builder's offer to return mineral rights to customers who make the request.

At this point it remains unclear how long the offer to return mineral rights will be available and how many D.R. Horton customers are aware of it.

Investor, financier and hedge fund manager T. Boone Pickens is giving a Texas-sized cheer to North Carolina for the Old North State's emerging energy policies.

Pickens, who chairs BP Capital Management, has issued an enthusiastic blurb in support of a package of three energy bills that would legalize fracking in this state and urge drilling off the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. The bills were passed Wednesday by a state Senate committee on energy policy and will be introduced before the General Assembly in May.

To be precise, Pickens lauded one provision in the sweeping legislative package that would reshape the state's political landscape with new boards, taks forces and a smorgasbord of requirements. What Pickens liked is the proposed "aggressive move to move the state's school buses off OPEC oil/diesel/gasoline and onto domestic natural gas."