The natural gas industry serves more than 72 million customers nationwide – including 19,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Orange and Lake counties served by the Lake Apopka Natural Gas District (LANGD). The impact of decisions made about natural gas at the national level is likely to be felt close to home by you or someone you know.
The nonprofit American Public Gas Association (APGA) represents more than 700 municipal and community-owned natural gas utilities in 37 states, and advocates on their behalf to Congress during annual trips to Washington, D.C. Samuel Davis Jr., General Manager and CEO of LANGD and an APGA board member for more than 25 years, joined the APGA delegation on its most recent visit, May 7-10.
Davis met with representatives from two of the three districts served by LANGD (Chris Wilcox, legislative director and counsel for Rep. Val Demings, and Melissa Robel, legislative analyst for Rep. Dennis Ross) to discuss the following issues that impact our region:
• Direct Use of Natural Gas: A lifecycle analysis proves that direct use of natural gas is more efficient than the burning of natural gas to generate electricity; indeed, three times more energy reaches the consumer. Therefore, direct use of natural gas should be actively promoted as part of the solution for improving U.S. energy efficiency and encouraging a cleaner environment.
• Low-Income Consumer Assistance: Funds for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) are provided by the federal government and administered by each state. Funding has steadily declined since 2009 and the President’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Blueprint proposes to eliminate it altogether. Defunding LIHEAP would be a devastating blow to the Florida families who last year received more than $63 million in assistance. Davis recommended that LIHEAP should be funded to the full authorization level of $5.1 billion, but not less than the last year’s funded amount of 3.39 billion. This funding enables families to pay for necessities, such as health care and child care, because their basic energy needs are covered.
• Tax-Exempt Financing: Tax-exempt bonds are the primary financing tool used by more than 50,000 state and local governments to satisfy infrastructure needs. Proposals to alter or replace tax exemptions would severely impact the natural gas industry, hindering economic growth, job growth, and the prepayment of natural gas purchases. Davis shared LANGD’s position that related legislation should not be enacted, as negative effects would ultimately be passed to consumers in the form of higher rates and less reliable service.
• Natural Gas Act Section 5 Reform: There currently exist a wide disparity in the manner in which electric customers versus gas customers are treated when it comes to the ability of FERC to review and timely set just and reasonable rates. Under the Federal Power Act (FPA), if a complaint is filed and FERC rules that the rate the customers have paid was unjust and unreasonable, FERC has the authority to make the new just and reasonable rate begin when the complaint case was filed, which means that the affected customers receive refunds (including interest) of the overcharges. By contrast, FERC does not have the same authority under the Natural Gas Act (NGA) to provide for the reimbursement to a gas customer that is determined to have been paying an unjust and unreasonable rate after a complaint has been filed. The gas customer will begin to pay the new just and reasonable rate only when FERC has concluded the complaint case, which means that the affected pipeline is able to retain all overcharges from the time the complaint is filed until it is finally resolved, which is likely to be a period of several years at best. The remedy for this imbalance is to enact legislation that provides that when customers file a complaint with FERC under NGA Section 5, the pipeline will have to pay refunds from the date that the complaint was submitted if it is found to have been violating the Natural Gas Act.
For more information about these issues, visit www.apga.org/issues, or contact the LANGD Marketing Team at 407-656-2734, ext. 307 or marketing@langd.org or www.langd.org.
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