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At its May Board meeting, the APGA Board of Directors approved two new policy resolutions in addition to several revisions to existing resolutions. APGA’s policy resolutions play a critical role in guiding the association in the advocacy positions that are taken. The first new policy resolution approved by the Board, titled “Fair Ratemaking on Tax Issues” addresses the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) regulation of pipeline rates. The resolution calls for FERC to require that pipelines return the value of Excess Accumulated Deferred Income Tax to ratepayers and implement equitable ratemaking policies that are fair to ratepayers who paid rates that produced Accumulated Deferred Income Tax accounts. The second resolution approved by the Board addresses renewable natural gas (RNG) and expresses support for the advancement of RNG technologies and projects.

There was also a revision to a resolution, titled “Financial Holding Companies Engaging in Physical Natural Gas Commodity Transactions” to reflect a December 2018 proposal by the financial regulators that would implement a new approach for calculating the exposure amount of derivative contracts under the agencies' regulatory capital rule. The result of the proposal is that large banks would have to hold more much more capital for energy swaps and those costs would be passed onto the parties engaging in the swap transactions.
These policy resolutions will now go before membership at the 2019 Annual Meeting, which is scheduled for July 31 in Stowe, Vermont.

For questions on this article, please contact Dave Schryver of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at dschryver@apga.org.