Department of Energy April 26, 2007 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In order to implement its authority under section 23 of the Natural Gas Act, which was added by section 316 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct 2005), the Commission proposes to revise its regulations to: require that intrastate pipelines post daily the capacities of, and volumes flowing through, their major receipt and delivery points and mainline segments in order to make available the information needed to track daily flows of natural gas throughout the United States; and require that buyers and sellers of more than a de minimis volume of natural gas report annual numbers and volumes of relevant transactions to the Commission in order to make possible an estimate of the size of the physical U.S. natural gas market, assess the importance of the use of index pricing in that market, and determine the size of the fixed-price trading market that produces the information. These revisions would facilitate price transparency in markets for the sale or transportation of physical natural gas in interstate commerce.

In this Final Rule, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Commission) is amending its accounting and reporting regulations to require public utilities and licensees to continue to follow the Commission's Uniform System of Accounts (USofA) and to file annual and quarterly financial reports when they have ceased making jurisdictional sales of electric energy, or providing jurisdictional transmission service, but continue collecting amounts pursuant to a Commission- accepted tariff or rate schedule, or a Commission order. The Final Rule will close a gap in the Commission's regulations which apply now only to operating public utilities and licensees, and which provide information necessary to the Commission's regulatory responsibilities.