The regulatory agency wants to tap gas fields in the Rocky Mountains to boost California supplies by 500 million cubic feet a day - or about 10 percent of daily demand - in time for the winter heating season.

Longer term, California wants to import liquefied natural gas, or LNG, beginning in 2006-2007 from terminals planned offshore Mexico and Southern California. There are five LNG projects on the drawing boards with 5 billion cubic feet of capacity.

"We don't have a moment to lose," CPUC Commissioner Susan Kennedy said when the commission approved gas plans earlier this month. The state's Energy Commission also backs LNG along with renewable energy.

Energy experts see LNG as one way to close a growing gap between rising demand and declining supplies from traditional gas fields in North America. LNG terminals are also planned for the Gulf of Mexico.

LNG is a super-cooled form of gas that can be transported by giant ships from Indonesia, South America, Russia and other regions, returned to its gaseous state, and then piped to customers.

CPUC's Kennedy compared the gas picture with the run-up to California's electricity crisis in 2000-2001: "No new generating plants, no reserves, sitting ducks for outside generators for market manipulation."

SUPPLY OUTLOOK

But critics contend the supply outlook is not so gloomy. New, more fuel-efficient electricity plants coming on line in California will burn less gas, while wider use of renewable energy like solar and wind power means LNG imports may not be needed, they argue.

Critics, including the environmental group Greenpeace, also say that LNG terminals proposed along Mexico's Baja California coast wiould harm the marine environment and wildlife and could be targets for attacks to cripple energy flows and economies on both sides of the border.

California is consuming about 6.1 billion cubic feet of gas a day this year, with about 84 percent of supplies imported from fields in the Southwest, Canada and Rocky Mountains, according to the Energy Commission.

Gas demand is forecast to rise 1.5 percent a year, mainly to fuel electricity plants, reaching 7.1 billion cubic feet a day in 2013.

California can trim demand by replacing or retrofitting its aging power stations with more efficient turbines and adding conservation programs and renewable energy, said CPUC Commissioner Loretta Lynch, who voted against LNG imports.

Lynch recently joined a Greenpeace flotilla of politicians and environmentalists to protest a $650 million LNG terminal near the Coronado Islands off Mexico's Pacific coast planned by ChevronTexaco Corp. (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) .

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, and other members of the state's Congressional delegation urged the CPUC to hold evidentiary hearings before deciding on LNG imports but so far such hearings have not been called.

Greenpeace may ask the regulatory agency to reconsider LNG imports and explore costs for utility customers, John Coequyt, an energy analyst for the group, said.

"We expect LNG imports to save hundreds of millions of dollars in gas costs," Art Larson, a spokesman for Sempra Energy (SRE.N: Quote, Profile, Research) , said. Sempra and Royal Dutch/Shell (RD.AS: Quote, Profile, Research) plan to build an LNG station in Baja California.

The CPUC's Lynch said, however, that customers of Sempra's San Diego Gas & Electric unit could wind up subsidizing gas shipments to consumers in Los Angeles.