ENERGY

Gas Co. Parent Reports Earnings Decline: Pacific Enterprises had a third-quarter profit of $42 million, or 47 cents a common-stock share, compared to $54 million, or 59 cents a share, a year earlier. This amounts to a decline in earnings even if a one-time, $8-million consolidated tax benefit in the 1993 third quarter is factored out. Willis B. Wood Jr., Pacific Enterprises chairman and chief executive, blamed the lower return on equity allowed in 1994 by the California Public Utilities Commission on Southern California Gas Co., its principal subsidiary.