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Ahead of the May 4 oversight hearing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee, APGA sent a letter encouraging the committee members to reintroduce legislation that would grant FERC the appropriate authority to remedy overcharges to interstate natural gas transmission customers. This communication will also be a part of the record for the hearing. 

Currently, Section 5 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) does not give FERC the authority to issue refunds to customers that have been overcharged by transmission entities, which makes it more difficult for APGA’s members to keep rates low for their customers. 

In our letter to the committee, we also highlighted the inconsistencies in the refund authority. The Federal Power Act (FPA), which lays out the regulations associated with interstate electric transmission like the NGA does for interstate natural gas transportation, provides FERC with this exact refund authority, but just in cases where interstate electric transmission customers are overcharged. View the letter here. 

Reforming the NGA to provide FERC with the appropriate authority to protect natural gas customers will ensure a fairer process, leading to faster rate complaint proceedings and ultimately, lower rates for consumers. APGA’s website has more here.

APGA will be working with our members to engage on the issue of Section 5 reform. To find out who represents you in D.C. and encourage them to support this necessary reform, click here. 

For questions on this article please contact Josh St. Pierre of APGA staff by phone at 202-470-4262 or by email at jstpierre@apga.org.