They are looking for clues as to how the long-awaited piece of legislation might affect utilities, renewable energy developers and customers when a series of new rules and mandates take shape.

Interested parties ranging from power company executives to the state consumer advocate praised efforts to update federal energy policy, which had gone without revision for more than a decade. The long stall dragged on despite a crisis in the Western electric market, soaring natural gas prices and struggles to spark renewable energy development, to name a few problems facing the nation.

"I think that it's very important that the federal government is becoming involved and taking steps forward," said Nevada Consumer Advocate Adriana Escobar Chanos. "They have made some strides in this legislation with respect to building certain types of fuels and concentrating on renewables. I'm not certain yet how it affects the consumers and consumer protection. We are in the midst of analyzing that."

Walter Higgins, chief executive of Sierra Pacific Resources, parent company of Nevada Power Co. of Las Vegas, praised the bill's inclusion of a so-called Enron amendment. That amendment will move the utility's lengthy legal battle with Enron Corp. into the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Enron has demanded $336 million in termination payments from Nevada Power and its sister utility -- Reno-based Sierra Pacific Power Co. -- for contracts signed during the 2000-01 Western energy crisis and later canceled. Enron had argued that the case should be heard in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, where it received a favorable ruling that was later set aside by an appeals court judge.

"We are very pleased that the comprehensive energy bill has been passed," Higgins said in a recent statement. "The bill includes an amendment that is especially important to our customers, the state of Nevada and our company -- that the FERC is the proper venue to resolve Enron's wrongful actions and related disputes emanating from the 2000-01 energy crisis."

Industrywide, the changes that will take place under the new energy policy are hard to quantify, said Jim Owen, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute, an association representing shareholder-owned utilities.

"There's still a lot of work to be done," he said, adding that the provisions in the bill will be the subject of dozens of rulemaking procedures.

Roger Jacobson, a research professor with the Desert Research Institute in Reno, has focused on renewable energy. He said the lack of jubilation on the part of any involved industry is probably a good sign.

"I think this is probably a good step forward," Jacobson said. "I don't think anybody was 100 percent happy with this, but I think it hit on some good points."

Beyond the Nevada-specific Enron amendment, the bill also addresses the need to diversify the fuel sources used to generate the country's electricity.

"I think the bill is very important," said Don Soderberg, chairman of the state Public Utilities Commission. "The bill seems to really focus on a lot of long-term solutions like clean-coal technology, renewable energy and the next-generation of nuclear power."

Both clean coal and renewable energy are of particular interest in Nevada. The vast majority of Nevada Power's company owned power plants are power by natural gas, which has soared in price in recent years. In an effort to diversify its fuel portfolio, the utility was granted permission to study the feasibility of a coal-fired plant in Southern Nevada. The need for such a plant is magnified by the closure at year's end of the Mohave power plant near Laughlin. Nevada Power owns a 14 percent stake in that coal-fired plant, which is closing because of pollution concerns.

Renewable energy also is will be supported by the new bill. It has, however, been a key topic in Nevada since the state Legislature passed a renewable energy portfolio standard in 2001. That standard now requires Nevada Power and sister utility Sierra Pacific Power Co. of Reno to obtain an increasing percentage of its peak energy demand from renewable energy sources, peaking at 20 percent in 2015.

While the new energy bill provides incentives for the development of renewable resources, some critics have charged that the bill did not go far enough. Nevada experts are not so sure that claim is true.

Jacobson pointed to benefits offered for renewable energy projects in the late 1970s and early 1980s that ultimately backfired.

"We had all sorts of benefits from the government for people selling fly-by-night systems," he said. "They didn't work. ... I'm probably conservative here, but I believe in going slow and racheting it up."

Soderberg also pointed out that renewable energy also is a long-term solution to the rising price and pollution associated with fossil fuels.

"The short-term solutions do lie in the use of fossil fuels better and by better I mean more efficiently," he said.

The bill is described as a $14.5 billion package of federal investments and incentives, but Jacobson said it will be impossible to spell out how much the new bill is worth to specific segments of the energy industry until applications for those incentives begin to pour in.

"Some of that language is a little open ended," he said. "Until people start applying for incentives, I don't think anyone will know how much is there."

Kevin Rademacher covers utilities and finance for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4069 or by e-mail at kevinr@lasvegassun.com.