Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood said the Commission would take the unusual action of hearing oral arguments in the high-profile complaint case pitting the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) against El Paso Corp. Wood said at the start of the Commission’s regular meeting last Wednesday that the arguments would be heard Dec. 2.

Before the Commission is an administrative law judge’s recommendation that endorses California’s long-standing allegation that El Paso Natural Gas and its merchant affiliate manipulated pipeline capacity into the state in order to raise gas prices during the state’s energy crisis (see NGI, Oct. 14) . El Paso had requested that the Commission schedule a full day of oral arguments before making a decision in the case. While it is not part of regular procedure, the Commission has in the past heard oral arguments on certain prominent cases with broad consequences.

In a notice issued Friday, FERC said the oral arguments would begin at 10 a.m. at the Commission’s headquarters. The CPUC and other California parties “will be allotted a total of one and one-half hours to present their arguments, a portion of which may be reserved for rebuttal purposes.” El Paso pipeline and El Paso Merchant Energy LP will be given the same amount of time.

The Commission instructed both sides to notify the agency by Nov. 15 of the “number of representatives they wish to present and the manner in which they desire to allocated their allotted time.” The opposing sides, it said, “must be prepared to address all aspects of this case.”

The chairman said the Commission still was intent on quickly resolving the long-standing dispute between California regulators and El Paso, but he seemed to shy away last week from his previous commitment to issue an order by the end of the year.

Noting that this was a “pretty juicy case,” Wood told reporters he had a four-foot high stack of records from the complaint case on his desk, but had only been able to plow through about six inches so far.

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