News Statements, Speeches & Interviews

Statement: November 20, 2008	View Printable PDF Version
Docket No. RM08-2-000

Commissioner Moeller's statement on Pipeline Posting Final Rule

“As I stated in April 2007 when we first began to examine this issue, the intent of our original proposal is “… simple – it is to promote greater transparency by requiring pipelines to report valuable information … information that will give us a better sense of the magnitude of transactions that occur in our nation’s natural gas markets. … the information that we are proposing to collect will give us a more complete understanding of the supply and demand conditions in the wholesale gas markets.”

By today’s final rule, we have accomplished these objectives.

My further concern at the time was ensuring that the companies subject to reporting requirements, that is “major non-interstate pipelines” under the rule, were properly defined so that small companies were not excessively burdened with federal regulation. Thus, I am pleased that this order establishes a delivery threshold of 50 million MMBtu of natural gas averaged over the past three years. This threshold properly balances the need for market information against the importance of not burdening the small pipelines that have fewer resources.

After much hard work by the staff and the industry in their comments, I am confident that this new rule will allow the Commission and other market observers to understand supply and demand fundamentals better and to identify and remedy potentially manipulative activity. The rule will provide needed transparency to important parts of the natural gas markets, such as Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Southern California. And the rule will allow market participants to better understand developing markets, such as Barnett Shale in the Fort Worth area, as many new markets are served by both interstate and intra-state pipelines.”

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