Three of the four leading natural gas trade associations onFriday were said to be either definitely on board or “favorablyinclined” to jointly ask FERC for a second extension of thedeadline for industry comments on the major notice of proposedrulemaking (NOPR) and notice of inquiry (NOI) issued in July[RM98-10, RM98-12]. A source indicated there was a “50-50 chance”the lone association holdout would sign on too. The joint request,which reportedly is being spear-headed by the Interstate NaturalGas Association of America (INGAA), would seek a six-monthextension of the current Jan. 22nd deadline, and could be filed atthe Commission as early as this week. A possible reason for themove is that one of the groups is trying to buy time to broker acompromise with the other three associations on a voluntary auctionproposal, the source said. This would make pipeline participationin capacity auctioning optional, as opposed to the mandatory routethat FERC seems to favor.

This would mark the second time that FERC has been asked to pushback the comment deadline for the NOPR and NOI. In early October,it granted a 74-day delay to Jan. 22nd from Nov. 9th. The extensionrequest then came from the top four gas associations – INGAA, theNatural Gas Supply Association, the American Gas Association andthe Independent Petroleum Association of America – and the ProcessGas Consumers Group/American Iron and Steel Institute, and theNational Association of Consumer Advocates.

Meanwhile, another report has FERC staff meeting privately withindividual industry segments to trouble-shoot problems associatedwith NOPR issues. This is in addition to the second technicalconference on auction issues the Commission has scheduled for Dec.8.

Susan Parker

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