On July 21, APGA joined several other trade associations in filing comments in response to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) rulemaking, supporting FERC’s proposal to update its pipeline filing requirements to require the submission of native format filings. In addition to APGA, commenters included the American Gas Association (AGA), American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Industrial Energy Consumers of America (IECA), Process Gas Consumers Group (PGC), and Natural Gas Supply Association (NGSA).
Last summer, APGA and these same associations filed a petition to FERC requesting this rulemaking. The petition was filed in response to concerns that some pipelines have been filing their statements/schedules in FERC rate case proceedings only in a PDF format, as opposed to their native formats (i.e., Excel spreadsheet). This practice has impeded APGA members and other parties in the given proceeding from performing routine analyses on the data.
Through the comments, APGA and the other commenters support FERC’s proposed rule to require the submission of all statements and schedules in their native/Excel format with all cells/links/formulas intact. This would facilitate efficient review of relevant data by both FERC staff and other stakeholders, consequently minimizing delays in establishing just and reasonable rates.
A copy of the comments is available
here.
For questions on this article, please contact Renée Lani of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-0836 or by email at
rlani@apga.org.