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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's derivatives reform rulemaking process has been so rife with hiccups, arguments and delays that an order this week to delay the effective date of some of these new rules by another six months was met with a collective shoulder shrug.

A few observations about Delta's acquisition of the Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania from Phillips 66. (While the deal was originally reported as a sale from ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 came into being today. So when the transaction closes, it will be the spun-off Phillips 66 as the selling company.)

(Based on reporting by Meghan Gordon, Gregory DL Morris and Jeff Mower. You can read more about the Delta purchase here.)

In December 2010, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission proposed a swap dealing threshold that was, arguably, so low that most energy lawyers and lobbyists believed it was inevitable that it would be raised considerably.

Few, however, could have predicted just how high that threshold would climb by the time CFTC's commissioners approved it as part of a final swap dealer definition they passed at their meeting April 18.

A Morgan Stanley-commissioned report released this week claims that a proposed federal ban on proprietary trading by banks will devastate energy derivatives hedging, lead to a hefty hike in natural gas, electricity and gasoline prices and cause East Coast refineries to shut down.

The report, however, is "a hatchet job" that makes "ridiculous" assumptions and assertions without proper analysis, according to John Parsons, the executive director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT.

There's no such thing as a short document regarding the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard. If the LCFS was a software program, it would have several million lines of code.

What's surprising about the LCFS is that it's out there looming over the California market, and by extension, other markets, and there are far more unkowns about it than knowns.

So based on meetings The Barrel had in Sacramento earlier this month, here are a few things to bring you up-to-date, while trying to do it in less than those few million lines:

There were no earth-shattering talks of unsolicited bids. The announcements of new products and services which exchanges and technology firms had waited until this week to make garnered scant press attention and debate over long-developing financial reform regulations bordered on mundane.

In fact, this year's annual Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida, may be remembered as the conference where attendees could talk about the collapse of MF Global, arguably the biggest issue facing the industry right now, but they really couldn't talk about it.

Platts' Alison Ciaccio and Brian Scheid are on the ground at the Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton. Here are a few of Alison's observations:

Like the star-crossed lovers in the timeless drama "Romeo and Juliet," energy lawyers, lobbyists and executives have lost a lot of sleep over the past few months wondering, as did the British Bard four centuries ago: "What's in a name?"

That name is "swap dealer," and while Shakespeare wrote that a rose by any other may smell just as sweet, energy companies may have a stink on them if regulators bestow upon them that dreaded moniker.

Earlier this month, the Washington, DC law and lobbying giant Patton Boggs announced that recently retired Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Michael Dunn had joined the firm as a senior policy adviser.

The announcement was interesting, considering that Dunn had not discussed his post-CFTC career plans publicly, but was certainly not a shock given the post-agency paycheck choices of nearly every commissioner who left the CFTC since it was created by Congress in 1974.

On January 19, the NYMEX crude-to-gas futures contract ratio hit an all-time, 22-year high of 43-to-1, tightening to 36-to-1 January 25.

Here's the question: Who cares anymore?