Related Research Articles
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates the interstate transmission and wholesale sale of electricity and natural gas and regulates the prices of interstate transport of petroleum by pipeline. FERC also reviews proposals to build interstate natural gas pipelines, natural gas storage projects, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, in addition to licensing non-federal hydropower projects.
Deregulation is the process of removing or reducing state regulations, typically in the economic sphere. It is the repeal of governmental regulation of the economy. It became common in advanced industrial economies in the 1970s and 1980s, as a result of new trends in economic thinking about the inefficiencies of government regulation, and the risk that regulatory agencies would be controlled by the regulated industry to its benefit, and thereby hurt consumers and the wider economy. Economic regulations were promoted during the Gilded Age, in which progressive reforms were claimed as necessary to limit externalities like corporate abuse, unsafe child labor, monopolization, pollution, and to mitigate boom and bust cycles. Around the late 1970s, such reforms were deemed burdensome on economic growth and many politicians espousing neoliberalism started promoting deregulation.
The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act is a United States Act passed as part of the National Energy Act. It was meant to promote energy conservation and promote greater use of domestic energy and renewable energy. The law was created in response to the 1973 energy crisis, and one year in advance of a second energy crisis.
El Paso Corporation was a provider of natural gas and related energy products and was one of North America's largest natural gas producers until its acquisition by Kinder Morgan in 2012. It was headquartered in Houston, Texas, United States.
A public service company is a corporation or other non-governmental business entity which delivers public services - certain services considered essential to the public interest. The ranks of such companies include public utility companies like natural gas, pipeline, electricity, and water supply companies, sewer companies, telephone companies and telegraph companies. They also include public services such as transportation of passengers or property as a common carrier, such as airlines, railroads, trucking, bus, and taxicab companies.
High Island Offshore System is a natural gas pipeline system that gathers gas in the offshore Gulf of Mexico and brings it into ANR Pipeline's eastern leg and Enbridge Pipelines UTOS. It is owned by El Paso Corporation. Its FERC code is 77.
Northwest Pipeline is a natural gas pipeline network which takes gas from western Canada and the Rocky Mountains via the Westcoast Pipeline and brings it into California, either through Gas Transmission Northwest or Kern River. A small amount of gas goes through the San Juan Basin to El Paso Natural Gas. It is owned by the Williams Companies. Its FERC code is 37.
Southern LNG is a re-gasification facility on Elba Island, in Chatham County, Georgia, five miles downstream from Savannah, Georgia. The initial authorization for the Elba Island facility was issued in 1972. LNG shipments ceased during the first half of 1980. On March 16, 2000, the project received Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) authorization to re-commission and renovate the LNG facilities.
Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Wisconsin, 347 U.S. 672 (1954), was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that sale of natural gas at the wellhead was subject to regulation under the Natural Gas Act. Prior to this case, independent producers sold natural gas to interstate pipelines at unregulated prices with any subsequent sales for resale being regulated. The State of Wisconsin sought to close this regulatory loophole in order to keep consumer prices low. Natural gas producers argued that wellhead sales were exempt from federal regulation as "production and gathering." Below, the Federal Power Commission compiled an evidentiary record 10,000 pages long before deciding not to regulate wellhead sales. However, the courts reversed, and the case resulted in federal price controls on wellhead gas prices for the next 40 years.
The Natural Gas Act of 1938 was the first occurrence of the United States federal government regulating the natural gas industry. It was focused on regulating the rates charged by interstate natural gas transmission companies. In the years prior to the passage of the Act, concern arose about the monopolistic tendencies of the transmission companies and the fact that they were charging higher than competitive prices. The passage of the Act gave the Federal Power Commission (FPC) control over the regulation of interstate natural gas sales. Later on, the FPC was dissolved and became the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) pursuant to a different act. FERC continues to regulate the natural gas industry to this day.
The Foster Natural Gas/Oil Report, formerly known as the Foster Natural Gas Report and Foster Associates Report, is a U.S.-based weekly newsletter published by Foster Associates, Inc. It was founded in Washington, D.C., on March 23, 1956, by J. Rhoades Foster and a group of economists. Its editor-in-chief is Edgar D. Boshart.
The Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act is a bill that would place a 12-month deadline on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve or reject any proposal for a natural gas pipeline. It was first introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress, and passed the House. It was again introduced during the 114th United States CongressH.R. 161 in January 2015 by Rep. Mike Pompeo, passed the House on January 21.
The PennEast Pipeline is a proposed project by PennEast Pipeline Company, LLC, a consortium of five energy companies, to move natural gas from the Marcellus Shale region in Pennsylvania to New Jersey. The proposed 36-inch (910 mm) pipeline would run from Dallas, Luzerne County to Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey, a distance of approximately 115 miles (185 km); as currently contemplated, the maximum allowable operating pressure would be approximately 1,480 psi. The pipeline requires the condemnation of properties in the state of New Jersey, which the state has opposed. A ruling against such condemnation was handed down in September 2019.
Natural gas was the United States' largest source of energy production in 2016, representing 33 percent of all energy produced in the country. Natural gas has been the largest source of electrical generation in the United States since July 2015.
The Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) is a natural gas pipeline being constructed from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia. The MVP will be 304 miles (489 km) long, and there is also a proposed Southgate Extension which will run 75 miles (121 km) from Virginia into North Carolina. The completed pipeline will have a capacity of 2 million dekatherms (Dts) of natural gas per day, with gas produced from the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.
PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 594 U.S. ___ (2021), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the sovereign immunity of states to delegated powers of eminent domain granted to private companies from federal agencies, in the specific case, acquiring property for the right-of-way to build a natural gas pipeline. The Court, in a 5–4 decision issued in June 2021, ruled that states, by nature of ratifying the Constitution, gave up their ability to exercise sovereign immunity from the federal government or from those parties whom they have delegated that authority.
The Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act of 1989 (NGWDA) is an act that amends the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 to declare that the price guidelines for the first sale of natural gas do not apply to:
- Expired, terminated, or post-enactment contracts executed after the date of enactment of this Act; and
- Certain renegotiated contracts.
The Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA) is federal legislation that had been enacted as a response to US natural gas shortages of 1976–77. It was enacted for the following motivations:
Transwestern Pipeline Company v. Corinne Grace was a hearing before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) on May 25, 1990. Transwestern Pipeline claimed that Grace, an independent oil and gas operator, had a well that was misclassified by the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division as what is called a stripper well under §108 of the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA). A stripper well is a well that is marginally productive. The underlying issue was the geology of the Morrow Formation in New Mexico and the reliability of the information the oil and gas commission of one state had based its decision on based on this type of geological formation and its characteristics. Around this same time, Corinne Grace was also in the 1990 FERC hearing for Corinne B. Grace v. El Paso Natural Gas Company.
Corinne B. Grace was an actress and oil and gas producer based out of New Mexico. She had been instrumental in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) reassessing the new federal regulations allowing pipelines to cancel oil and gas producer contracts as was seen in Corinne B. Grace v. El Paso Natural Gas Company. She was also instrumental in protecting stripper wells as well as being supportive of state interpretations of FERC regulations as was seen in Transwestern Pipeline Company v. Corinne Grace. She also was part of the tax law theory of equitable recoupment being applied to city revenue from leased property with the court case of Grace v. City of Carlsbad.
References
- 1 2 Order No. 490, Final Rule, (Issued February 5, 1988), FERC
- ↑ Corinne B. Grace v. El Paso Natural Gas Company, Docket No. GP89-38-001, FERC
- ↑ Natural Gas Wellhead Decontrol Act of 1989 FERC
- ↑ Basic Federal Natural Gas Regulation for the Oil and Gas Lawyer - Washburn University School of Law CLE (1989) (washburnlaw.edu)