FERC Chairman James Hoecker yesterday announced that theCommission will hold a conference on Feb. 25 to address therelationship between interstate pipeline competition and retailunbundling at the state level.

“…[O]ur policies here at the Commission on the gas sideclearly affect state retail-access programs, and increasingly thereverse is the case. So we need to understand the goals of thestates and they need to understand ours to get regulatory andoperational regimes to operate in sync in the gas delivery system,”he said at the bi-weekly meeting.

“I think we share [with] our colleagues at the state level adesire to encourage a vibrant natural gas market that will workwell.” Hoecker thinks the conference will go a long way towardhelping to understand the problems faced by each side.

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