El Paso Natural Gas and El Paso Energy Merchant Co. have called on FERC to provide “immediate guidance” on the “record status” of the Commission enforcement section’s bid for an expanded investigation into whether the two companies conspired to drive up gas prices in Southern California.

The El Paso affiliates urged FERC to take “prompt” action “before any further harm is inflicted” on them. The “comments” by the Office of General Counsel’s Market Oversight and Enforcement Section (MOE) “already have prejudiced El Paso and Merchant Energy’s ability to [get] a fair review” on the market-power issue when the case is forwarded to the full Commission, the companies contend.

The El Paso affiliates are opposed to FERC giving Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and other parties an opportunity to comment on the merits of MOE’s request because it would permit them to “collaterally attack” the mid-October initial decision of Chief Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner, which cleared the El Paso companies of market-power abuse charges.

In a Nov. 2 letter to the Commission, PG&E indicated that it intends to file in support of MOE’s request for further investigation of the El Paso affiliates.

In a motion filed earlier this month, the two El Paso affiliates urged the Commission to strike MOE’s comments and its bid for an expanded investigation on the basis that it would be a violation of their due process rights. They argued that the issues already had been reviewed by Wagner during a hearing last summer and were found to have no merit. They contend that MOE simply is trying to re-try an outcome that was favorable to El Paso (See Daily GPI, Nov. 1).

Specifically, MOE is seeking to further explore whether the El Paso pipeline violated the Commission’s open-access regulations by withholding interruptible transportation (IT) service last winter from customers in an attempt to maintain “upward pressure” on prices for gas delivered to the California border. MOE claims the issue was neither the focus of the hearing last summer nor Wagner’s initial decision, but the El Paso affiliates insist otherwise.

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