Chairman Jon Wellinghoff Statement June 21, 2012 Docket No. AD12-12-000

Regional Conferences on Gas-Electric Coordination

"I am pleased to announce that the Commission is planning as many as five regional technical conferences to explore coordination between the natural gas and electric industries. These conferences, which are tentatively scheduled to cover the Midwest, the West, New England, New York, the mid-Atlantic and the Southeast, will each include a staff presentation on infrastructure in that region and an opportunity for a staff-led industry discussion of national issues affecting coordination between the gas and electricity markets, electric reliability, and those issues of special significance to that particular region. My colleagues and I look forward to attending these conferences as our schedules permit.

Details are still being worked out on dates and locations for each of these conferences, but we plan to hold them in July and August, with some conferences to be held here at the Commission headquarters and some to be held in regional centers.

We look forward to a productive discussion that will allow us to identify and move forward on steps both industries and regulators can take to improve coordination between these two, critically important industries."