At the APGA Board and Committee meetings this week in Cape Coral, Fla., the Operations & Safety (O&S) Committee discussed the proposed APGA Mutual Aid Agreement. With numerous weather and outage related incidents throughout the country in 2018, it has become ever apparent that APGA members are ready and eager to send aid. At this time, many APGA members only have mutual aid agreements with the other public gas systems in their state or immediate vicinity. The APGA Mutual Aid Agreement will allow all signees to provide and receive aid from APGA members from around the country.
Due to the nuances in the local and state laws that govern APGA members, there are specific provisions within mutual aid agreements that are challenging to address in a way that allows all APGA members to sign. The primary example is indemnification clauses. For many APGA members, and certainly for all IOUs, indemnification or hold harmless language is necessary for participation in a mutual aid program. Indemnification provisions address complicated situations, such as when a third-party attempts to sue both the “requesting” and “responding” systems if the requesting system has an accident after mutual aid has been delivered. State law restricts the ability of many members to make such a contractual indemnity, while others are unable or unwilling to sign agreements that do not include indemnification clauses. Therefore, after discussion at the meeting, the O&S Committee has decided to include an indemnification provision that contains a caveat such as “to the extent permitted by law.”
The Task Group, with legal and operations representatives from member companies, will use this guidance to continue refining the APGA Mutual Aid Agreement. The final agreement will be presented to the Board for their approval at the May Board & Committee Meetings. If you or someone from your system is interesting in providing input through the Task Group, please let APGA know.
For question on this article, please contact Erin Kurilla of APGA staff by phone at 202-464-2742 or by email at
ekurilla@apga.org.