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Last week, Senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Burr (R-NC) reintroduced the “Making Pipelines Accountable to Consumers and Taxpayers Act” (S. 3736). The legislation would reform Section 5 of the Natural Gas Act to allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to issue refunds when transmission pipelines are found to have charged unfair rates. The bill text mirrors what the two Senators introduced in the previous Congress.

Legislation to reform Section 5 has now been introduced in both chambers of Congress. Representatives Butterfield (D-NC) and Long (R-MO) introduced similar legislation, the “Protecting Natural Gas Consumers from Overcharges Act of 2021” (H.R. 3979), in the House of Representatives in June of last year.

These bills have been referred to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources and House Energy and Commerce Committees. While election years are a challenging time to seek legislative change, APGA will continue to work with coalition partners who also support this legislation to advocate for both bills.

For questions on this article, please contact Emily Wong of APGA staff by phone at 202-470-4262 or by email at ewong@apga.org.