WASHINGTON, Feb 4 (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department has canceled plans to put into the market during 2011 extra government-owned surplus uranium supplies, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told Congress on Thursday, but the uranium transfers will continue for this year.

The department had planned to transfer next year up to 1,125 tonnes, or about 2.48 million lbs, of its surplus uranium a year to raise money to pay for the cleanup of the Portsmouth uranium enrichment plant in Ohio.

The uranium would have been transferred to USEC Inc <USU.N>. The company is one of the biggest suppliers of low enriched uranium that is used as fuel for nuclear power plants.

However, Chu told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the department did not want to put too much uranium in the market because it would go against an earlier agreement with uranium producers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. market will still need huge natural gas supplies brought from Alaska by an expensive pipeline, even though vast gas resources trapped in shale rock in the Lower 48 States can now be developed, the federal coordinator for the pipeline told Congress on Tuesday.

U.S. natural gas demand is expected to grow over the next decade as utilities run more of their power plants on natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and more consumers choose gas to warm their homes.

“The nation is certainly looking to natural gas to a much larger extent in the future in the decades ahead as a preferable cleaner-burning fuel of choice,” said Larry Persily, nominated by President Barack Obama to coordinate Alaska’s pipeline project.

Two pipelines are competing to bring about 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from Alaska’s North Slope to the lower 48 United States. Alaska holds an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

WASHINGTON, Feb 2 (Reuters) – The U.S. market will still need huge natural gas supplies brought from Alaska by an expensive pipeline, even though vast gas resources trapped in shale rock in the Lower 48 States can now be developed, the federal coordinator for the pipeline told Congress on Tuesday.

U.S. natural gas demand is expected to grow over the next decade as utilities run more of their power plants on natural gas to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and more consumers choose gas to warm their homes.

“The nation is certainly looking to natural gas to a much larger extent in the future in the decades ahead as a preferable cleaner-burning fuel of choice,” said Larry Persily, nominated by President Barack Obama to coordinate Alaska’s pipeline project.

Two pipelines are competing to bring about 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day from Alaska’s North Slope to the lower 48 United States. Alaska holds an estimated 35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration said on Monday it wanted to cancel funding to expand the U.S. emergency oil stockpile, claiming the reserve is big enough to handle a disruption in petroleum supplies.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is now at its full capacity of 727 million barrels, but Congress previously called for the department to expand the stockpile to 1 billion barrels.

The reserve was created by Congress in the mid 1970s in response to the Arab oil embargo. The stockpile stores crude oil in underground salt caverns at four sites in Louisiana and Texas.

The Bush administration had planned to develop a fifth reserve site in Richton, Mississippi, that would have held 160 million barrels of oil in 16 caverns.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Monday asked Congress for a second time to end some $36.5 billion in subsidies for oil and gas companies, saying it would help fight global warming.

In its proposed budget for the government’s 2011 spending year that starts October 1, the administration said eliminating the subsidies would “foster the clean energy economy of the future and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change.”

The industry tax breaks that would be lost include: deductions for certain drilling costs, tax credits for low-volume oil and gas wells and a manufacturing tax deduction for oil and gas companies.

“We will not continue costly tax cuts for oil companies,” President Obama said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s budget proposal will call for tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors, an administration official said on Friday, a move sure to win over some Republican lawmakers who want more nuclear power to be part of climate change legislation.

The $54 billion in loan guarantees, which follows Obama’s pledge in his State of the Union address to expand nuclear power production, will be announced as part of Obama’s proposed 2011 budget that will be sent to Congress on Monday.

Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to pass an energy and climate change bill with incentives to make clean energy profitable. “And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” he said.

“As the world moves to tackle climate change and diversify our national energy portfolio, nuclear energy will play a vital role,” said Carol Browner, who advises the president on energy and climate change issues.

WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama’s budget proposal will call for tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear reactors, an administration official said on Friday, a move sure to win over some Republican lawmakers who want more nuclear power to be part of climate change legislation.

The $54 billion in loan guarantees, which follows Obama’s pledge in his State of the Union address to expand nuclear power production, will be announced as part of Obama’s proposed 2011 budget that will be sent to Congress on Monday.

Obama on Wednesday called on Congress to pass an energy and climate change bill with incentives to make clean energy profitable. “And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country,” he said.

“As the world moves to tackle climate change and diversify our national energy portfolio, nuclear energy will play a vital role,” said Carol Browner, who advises the president on energy and climate change issues.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate on Thursday approved legislation that would let President Barack Obama impose sanctions on Iran’s gasoline suppliers and penalize some of Tehran’s elites, a move aimed at pressuring Tehran to give up its nuclear program.

The sanctions, approved on a voice vote, would target companies that export gasoline to Iran or help expand the country’s oil-refining capacity by, in part, denying them loans and other assistance from U.S. financial institutions.

The House of Representatives has already passed similar legislation. Differences between the two bills will have to be worked out before the measure becomes law.

Lawmakers and the Obama administration fear Iran’s uranium enrichment program will be used to develop weapons, while Tehran says it is for peaceful purposes such as generating electricity.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Virginia’s two U.S. senators on Wednesday urged the Obama administration to carry out a previous plan to lease almost 3 million acres (1.2 million hectares) in federal waters off the state’s coastline to oil and natural gas companies.

The lawmakers said in a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar that recent comments by a department official that the Virginia lease sale originally planned for late 2011 would be delayed until 2012 at the earliest are frustrating given that drilling creates jobs and needed energy supplies.

The offshore Virginia area that would be leased may hold 130 million barrels of oil and 1.14 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to government estimates.

The senators, both Democrats, asked Salazar to complete the Interior Department’s study on the environmental impact of drilling of the Virginia coast and publish rules to allow energy companies to conduct seismic surveys to determine the potential oil and gas resources in Atlantic waters.

WASHINGTON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Congress should require banks and other big players to trade derivatives on regulated exchanges as an “absolutely essential” part of regulatory reform to prevent another market crisis, the chief U.S. futures regulator said on Wednesday.

Exchange trading of “standardized” swaps is an important element in the Obama administration proposal to bring over-the-counter derivatives under federal control. The plan also calls for reporting trades and processing through clearinghouses to reduce risk.

“Make no mistake: This is an absolutely essential component of reform,” said Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, referring to trading of swaps on regulated exchanges and electronic platforms.

In prepared remarks, he said requiring banks and other Wall Street dealers to bring their standardized transactions to transparent trading venues would “shift the information advantage from a small group of derivative dealers on Wall Street to the broader market.”