131 FERC ¶ 61,150 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION 

18 CFR Part 284 

[Docket No. RM09-2-000; Order No. 735] 

Contract Reporting Requirements of Intrastate Natural Gas Companies 

(Issued May 20, 2010) 

AGENCY: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. 

ACTION: Final Rule 

SUMMARY: In this Final Rule, the Commission revises the contract reporting 

requirements for those natural gas pipelines that fall under the Commission’s jurisdiction 

pursuant to section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act or section 1(c) of the Natural Gas 

Act. The Final Rule revises § 284.126(b) and replaces Form No. 549 – Intrastate Pipeline 

Annual Transportation Report with the new Form No. 549D – Quarterly Transportation 

and Storage Report for Intrastate Natural Gas and Hinshaw Pipelines. The Final Rule 

makes changes so as to (1) increase the reporting frequency from annual to quarterly, 

(2) include certain additional types of information and cover storage transactions as well 

as transportation transactions, (3) establish a procedure for the Form No. 549D reports to 

be filed in a uniform electronic format and posted on the Commission’s web site, (4) and 

hold that those reports must be public and may not be filed with information redacted as 

privileged. The Commission is also modifying its policy concerning periodic reviews of 

the rates charged by section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to extend the cycle for such 

reviews from 3 years to 5 years. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 2 - 

EFFECTIVE DATE: This rule will become effective April 1, 2011.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Vince Mareino (Legal Information) 

Office of the General Counsel 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

888 First Street, NE 

Washington, DC 20426 

(202) 502-6167 

Vince.Mareino@ferc.gov 

James Sarikas (Technical Information) 

Office of Energy Markets Regulation 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

888 First Street, NE 

Washington, DC 20426 

(202) 502-6831 

James.Sarikas@ferc.gov 

Thomas Russo (Technical Information) 

Office of Enforcement 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

888 First Street, NE 

Washington, DC 20426 

(202) 502-8792 

Thomas.Russo@ferc.gov 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
131 FERC ¶ 61,150 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION 

Before Commissioners: Jon Wellinghoff, Chairman; 

 Marc Spitzer, Philip D. Moeller, 

 and John R. Norris. 

Contract Reporting Requirements of Intrastate Natural 

Gas Companies 

Docket No. RM09-2-000 

ORDER NO. 735 

FINAL RULE 

(Issued May 20, 2010) 

Paragraph Numbers

I. Introduction and Summary.....................................................................................................1.

II. Background...........................................................................................................................2.

III. Statutory Authority for the Rule..........................................................................................15.

IV. Need for the Rule ................................................................................................................22.

V. Details of Pipeline Posting Requirements ............................................................................41.

A. Overview and Summary of Requirements .......................................................................41.

B. Definition of Reportable Service......................................................................................43.

C. Reporting Frequency ........................................................................................................49.

D. Identification of Receipt and Delivery Points and Shippers............................................54.

E. Requests for Exemptions and Safe Harbor.......................................................................62.

F. Public Status of Reports....................................................................................................68.

G. Data Format and Technical Protocols..............................................................................80.

VI. Periodic Rate Review ..........................................................................................................89.

VII. Effective Date of the Final Rule and Compliance Deadlines ............................................97.

VIII. Information Collection Statement ....................................................................................103.

IX. Environmental Analysis ......................................................................................................109.

X. Regulatory Flexibility Act ....................................................................................................110.

XI. Document Availability ........................................................................................................112.

XII. Effective Date and Congressional Notification .................................................................115.
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 2 - 

I. Introduction and Summary

1. In this Final Rule, the Commission revises the contract reporting requirements for 

(1) intrastate natural gas pipelines1

 providing interstate transportation service pursuant to 

pursuant to section 311 of the Natural Gas Policy Act of 1978 (NGPA)2

 and (2) Hinshaw 

pipelines providing interstate service subject to the Commission’s Natural Gas Act 

(NGA) section 1(c) jurisdiction pursuant to blanket certificates issued under § 284.224 of 

the Commission’s regulations.3

 The revised reporting requirements are intended to 

increase market transparency, without imposing unduly burdensome requirements on the 

pipelines. Specifically, the Final Rule revises § 284.126(b) and replaces Form No. 549 – 

Intrastate Pipeline Annual Transportation Report with the new Form No. 549D, so as to 

(1) increase the reporting frequency from annual to quarterly, (2) include certain 

additional types of information and cover storage transactions as well as transportation 

 1

 Pursuant to section 2(16) of the NGPA, 15 U.S.C. 3301(16), the term “intrastate 

pipeline” may refer to all entities engaged in natural gas transportation under section 311 

of the NGPA or section 1(c) of the NGA. For consistency, this Final Rule will also use 

the terms “transportation,” “pipeline,” and “shippers” to refer inclusively to storage 

activity (except where noted). 

2

 15 U.S.C. 3372. 

3

 Section 1(c) of the NGA exempts from the Commission’s NGA jurisdiction 

those pipelines which transport gas in interstate commerce if (1) they receive natural gas 

at or within the boundary of a state, (2) all the gas is consumed within that state and (3) 

the pipeline is regulated by a state Commission. This exemption is referred to as the 

Hinshaw exemption after the Congressman who introduced the bill amending the NGA to 

include section 1(c). See ANR Pipeline Co. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 71 

F.3d 897, 898 (1995) (briefly summarizing the history of the Hinshaw exemption). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 3 - 

transactions,4

 (3) establish a procedure for Form No. 549D to be filed in a uniform 

electronic format and posted on the Commission’s web site, and (4) hold that those 

reports must be public and may not be filed with information redacted as privileged. The 

Commission is also modifying its policy concerning periodic reviews of the rates charged 

by section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to extend the cycle for such reviews from 3 years 

to 5 years. 

II. Background

A. Current Reporting Requirements

2. NGPA section 311 authorizes the Commission to allow intrastate pipelines to 

transport natural gas “on behalf of” interstate pipelines or local distribution companies 

served by interstate pipelines “under such terms and conditions as the Commission may 

prescribe.”5

 NGPA section 601(a)(2) exempts transportation service authorized under 

NGPA section 311 from the Commission’s NGA jurisdiction. Congress adopted these 

provisions in order to eliminate the regulatory barriers between the intrastate and 

interstate markets and to promote the entry of intrastate pipelines into the interstate 

market. Such entry eliminates the need for duplication of facilities between interstate and 

 4

 This Final Rule does not eliminate or revise § 284.126(c) and the corresponding 

Form No. 537, which require a semi-annual storage report. 

5

 15 U.S.C. 3371(c). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 4 - 

 

intrastate pipelines.6

 Shortly after the adoption of the NGPA, the Commission authorized 

Hinshaw pipelines to apply for NGA section 7 certificates, authorizing them to transport 

natural gas in interstate commerce in the same manner as intrastate pipelines may do 

under NGPA section 311.7

3. Subpart C of the Commission’s Part 284 open access regulations (18 CFR 

§ 284.121-126) implements the provisions of NGPA section 311 concerning 

transportation by intrastate pipelines. Those regulations require that intrastate pipelines 

performing interstate service under NGPA section 311 must do so on an open access 

basis.8

 However, consistent with the NGPA’s goal of encouraging intrastate pipelines to 

provide interstate service, the Commission has not imposed on intrastate pipelines all of 

the Part 284 requirements imposed on interstate pipelines.9

 For example, when the 

Commission first adopted the Part 284 open access regulations in Order No. 436, the 

Commission exempted intrastate pipelines from the requirement that they offer open 

6 EPGT Texas Pipeline, 99 FERC ¶ 61,295 at 62,252-3 (2002). 

7 Certain Transportation, Sales, and Assignments by Pipeline Companies not 

Subject to Commission Jurisdiction Under Section 1(c) of the Natural Gas Act, Order 

No. 63, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 30,118, at 30,824-25 (1980). 

8 See 18 CFR §§ 284.7(b), 284.9(b) and 284.122. 

9 Associated Gas Distributors v. FERC, 824 F.2d 981, 1002-1003 (D.C. Cir. 1987) 

(AGD); Mustang Energy Corp. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 859 F.2d 1447, 

1457 (10th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1019 (1988); see also EPGT Texas Pipeline, 

99 FERC ¶ 61,295 (2002). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 5 - 

 

access service on a firm basis.10 The Commission found that requiring intrastate 

pipelines to offer firm service to out-of-state shippers could discourage them from 

providing any interstate service, because such a requirement could progressively turn the 

intrastate pipeline into an interstate pipeline against its will and against the will of the 

responsible state authorities. Similarly, Order No. 636-B exempted intrastate pipelines 

from the requirements of Order No. 636.11 Those requirements included capacity release, 

electronic bulletin boards (now internet websites), and flexible receipt and delivery 

points. 

4. Section 284.224 of the regulations provides for the issuance of blanket certificates 

to Hinshaw pipelines to provide open access transportation service “to the same extent 

that, and in the same manner” as intrastate pipelines are authorized to perform such 

service by Subpart C. 

5. The Commission currently has less stringent transactional reporting requirements 

for NGPA section 311 intrastate pipelines and Hinshaw pipelines, than for interstate 

10 Regulation of Natural Gas Pipelines After Partial Wellhead Decontrol, Order 

No. 436, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 30,665, at 31,502 (1985). 

11 Pipeline Service Obligations, and Revisions to Regulations Governing SelfImplementing Transportation Under Part 284 of the Commission’s Regulations; 

Regulation of Natural Gas Pipelines After Partial Wellhead Decontrol, Order No. 636-B, 

61 FERC ¶ 61,272, at 61,992 n.26 (1992), order on reh’g, 62 FERC ¶ 61,007 (1993), 

aff’d in part and remanded in part sub nom. United Distribution Cos. v. FERC, 88 F.3d 

1105 (D.C. Cir. 1996), order on remand, Order No. 636-C, 78 FERC ¶ 61,186 (1997). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 6 - 

 

pipelines. In Order No. 637,12 the Commission revised the reporting requirements for 

interstate pipelines in order to provide more transparent pricing information and to permit 

more effective monitoring for the exercise of market power and undue discrimination. 

As adopted by Order No. 637, § 284.13(b) requires interstate pipelines to post on their 

internet websites basic information on each transportation and storage transaction with 

individual shippers, including revisions to a contract, no later than the first nomination 

under a transaction. This information includes: 

 The name of the shipper 

 The contract number (for firm service) 

 The rate charged 

 The maximum rate 

 The duration (for firm service) 

 The receipt and delivery points and zones covered 

 The quantity of natural gas covered 

12 Regulation of Short-Term Natural Gas Transportation Services and Regulation

of Interstate Natural Gas Transportation Services, Order No. 637, FERC Stats. & Regs. 

¶ 31,091, clarified, Order No. 637-A, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,099, reh’g denied, Order 

No. 637-B, 92 FERC ¶ 61,062 (2000), aff’d in part and remanded in part sub nom. 

Interstate Natural Gas Ass’n of America v. FERC, 285 F.3d 18 (D.C. Cir. 2002), order on 

remand, 101 FERC ¶ 61,127 (2002), order on reh’g, 106 FERC ¶ 61,088 (2004), aff’d 

sub nom. American Gas Ass’n v. FERC, 428 F.3d 255 (D.C. Cir. 2005). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 7 - 

 Any special terms or details, such as any deviations from the tariff 

 Whether any affiliate relationship exists. 

6. Section 284.13(c) of the Commission’s regulations also requires interstate 

pipelines to file with the Commission on the first business day of each calendar quarter 

an index of its firm transportation and storage customers and to publish the same 

information on their websites. The information required to be included in the Index of 

Customers does not include the rates paid by the customers. Section 284.13(e) requires 

interstate pipelines to file semi-annual reports of their storage injection and withdrawal 

activities, including the identities of the customers, the volumes injected into and 

withdrawn from storage for each customer and the unit charge and total revenues 

received. Order No. 637 did not modify the reporting requirements for NGPA section 

311 intrastate pipelines and Hinshaw pipelines provided in § 284.126(b) and (c) of the 

Commission’s regulations. 

7. Section 284.126(b) of the Commission’s regulations requires intrastate pipelines to 

file with the Commission annual reports of their transportation transactions, but not their 

storage transactions. Those Form No. 549 reports must include the following 

information: 

 The name of the shipper receiving transportation service 

 The type of service performed (i.e. firm or interruptible) 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 8 - 

 The total volumes transported for the shipper, including for firm service a 

separate statement of reservation and usage quantities 

 Total revenues received for the shipper, including for firm service a 

separate statement of reservation and usage revenues. 

8. Unlike the interstate pipelines’ reporting requirement (§ 284.13(b)), the current 

version of § 284.126(b) does not require intrastate pipelines to include in these Form 

No. 549 reports the rate charged under each contract, the duration of the contract, the 

receipt and delivery points and zones or segments covered by each contract, whether the 

contract includes any special terms and conditions, and whether there is an affiliate 

relationship between the pipeline and the shipper. 

9. Section 284.126(c) requires Section 311 intrastate pipelines and Hinshaw pipelines 

to file Form No. 537, a semi-annual report of their storage activity, within 30 days of the 

end of each complete storage and injection season. This requirement is substantially the 

same as the § 284.13(e) requirement that interstate pipelines file such semi-annual reports 

of their storage activity. 

B. The NOPR

10. In November 2008, the Commission issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI), requesting 

comments on whether the Commission should impose additional reporting requirements 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 9 - 

on NGPA section 311 intrastate pipelines and on Hinshaw pipelines.13 The NOI stated 

that, in a contemporaneous order, the Commission was denying a request by interstate 

storage provider with market based rates14 for waiver of the requirements that interstate 

pipelines post the rates charged in firm and interruptible transactions no later than first 

nomination for service. In that order, the Commission held that the fact some interstate 

storage companies have been authorized to charge market-based rates does not justify 

exempting them from the requirements in section 284.13(b) that they post the rates 

charged in each storage transaction. The SGRM order held that the existing posting 

requirements for interstate pipelines are necessary to provide shippers with the price 

transparency they need to make informed decisions, and the ability to monitor 

transactions for undue discrimination and preference.15 The Commission also found that 

the requested exemption would be contrary to NGA section 4(c)’s requirement that 

“every natural gas company . . . keep open . . . for public inspection . . . all rates.”16

11. However, in recognition of interstate storage providers’ concern about the 

competitive effects of the disparate reporting requirements for interstate pipelines and 

 13 Contract Reporting Requirement of Intrastate Natural Gas Companies, FERC 

Stats. & Regs. ¶ 35,559 (2008). 

14 SG Resources Mississippi, L.L.C. (SGRM). 

15 SGRM, 125 FERC ¶ 61,191 (2008). 

16 15 U.S.C. 717c(c). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 10 - 

 

section 311 intrastate pipelines, the NOI stated that the Commission was interested in 

exploring (1) whether the disparate reporting requirements for interstate and intrastate 

pipelines have an adverse competitive effect on the interstate pipelines and (2) if so, 

whether the Commission should modify the posting requirements for Section 311 

intrastate pipelines and Hinshaw pipelines in order to make them more comparable to the 

§ 284.13(b) posting requirements for interstate pipelines. Accordingly, the Commission 

sought comments to assist it in evaluating whether changes in the Commission’s posting 

requirements should be considered in order to remove any competitive disadvantage for 

interstate pipelines, as compared to intrastate pipelines providing interstate transportation 

and storage services under Section 311 of the NGPA and to Hinshaw pipelines providing 

such service pursuant to a § 284.224 blanket certificate. 

12. Based upon a review of the comments received in response to the NOI, the 

Commission issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR),17 proposing to revise its 

transactional reporting requirements for intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines in order to 

increase market transparency, without imposing unduly burdensome requirements on 

those pipelines. The Commission proposed to increase the availability and usefulness of 

the transactional information reported by intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines by requiring 

that (1) the existing annual § 284.126(b) transactional reports be filed on a quarterly 

17 Contract Reporting Requirements of Intrastate Natural Gas Companies, FERC 

Stats. & Regs. ¶ 32,644 (2009) (NOPR). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 11 - 

basis, (2) the quarterly reports include certain additional types of information and cover 

storage transactions as well as transportation transactions, (3) the quarterly reports be 

filed in a uniform electronic format and posted on the Commission’s web site, and (4) the 

reports must be public and may not be filed with information redacted as privileged. 

13. The Commission invited all interested parties to comment on all aspects of the 

NOPR. The Commission also elaborated on the proposed uniform electronic format in a 

separate Notice Requesting Comments On Proposed Standardized Electronic Information 

Collection (Information Notice).18

14. Comments on the NOPR and Information Notice were due on November 4, 2009. 

Sixteen parties filed comments. A list of Commenters and Abbreviations is included as 

an appendix to this order. Most commenters were Section 311 or Hinshaw pipelines or 

their associations, but interstate pipelines, exploration & production companies, and an 

association of municipal consumers also filed comments. We discuss the comments 

below in the context of reviewing, amending, and promulgating each aspect of this Final 

Rule. 

III. Statutory Authority for the Rule

15. In this section, we address contentions by some commenters that the Commission 

lacks authority under NGPA section 311 to require intrastate pipelines to file more 

 18 Contract Reporting Requirements of Intrastate Natural Gas Companies, FERC 

Stats. & Regs. ¶ 35,051 (2009) (Information Notice). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 12 - 

detailed transactional reports. While some commenters contest specific aspects of our 

proposal as it affects Hinshaw pipelines, no commenter questions the Commission’s 

general authority under NGA sections 4 and 10 to require Hinshaw pipelines to file more 

detailed transactional reports. 

A. NOPR

16. In the NOPR, the Commission stated that NGPA section 311(c) authorizes the 

Commission to prescribe the “terms and conditions” under which intrastate pipelines 

perform interstate service. The NOPR concluded that its proposal to require intrastate 

pipelines to file and make public the proposed transactional reports so that shippers and 

others can monitor NGPA section 311 transactions for undue discrimination is well 

within the Commission’s broad conditioning authority under § 311(c). 

B. Comments

17. TPA claims that the Commission lacks statutory authority to enact the proposed 

regulations, arguing that “Congressional intent [was] that transactions under NGPA 

Section 311 are to be subjected to minimal regulation.”19 Enogex, along with TPA, adds 

that the proposed reporting requirements are “in direct contravention of Section 311 of 

 19 TPA at 2. See also id. at 12, 13, 16. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 13 - 

 

the NGPA and the legislative intent,” because compliance would be “unduly 

burdensome,” and because disclosure would harm the pipelines’ business position.20

18. Other commenters, citing the legislative history of the NGPA, argue that the 

proposed regulations are lawful. Clayton Williams states that “to the extent the intrastate 

pipeline is involved in an authorized” interstate transaction, the Commission has 

jurisdiction to review that transaction.21 Similarly, Texas Alliance argues that claims of 

undue burden are too conclusory, and that the NGPA’s jurisdiction is actually based on 

whether a given activity of a Section 311 pipeline is interstate or intrastate.22 Clayton 

Williams argues that it is the purpose of Section 311 to “help integrate gas markets,” and 

that “reasonable rules have always been part of the 311 world.”23 Further, Apache argues 

for even more frequent and detailed reporting, stating, “the Commission has jurisdiction 

and discretion to require ... [intrastate] pipelines to report the same information during 

the same time frame about natural gas transactions that the interstate pipelines are 

20 Enogex at 6. Enogex and several other commenters also raise this concern as a 

policy argument instead of an argument on statutory authority; these policy arguments are 

addressed in the subsequent section on the Need for the Rule. 

21 Clayton Williams at 4 (quoting H.R. Rep. No. 543, 95th Cong. 1st Sess. 45 

(1977)). 

22 Texas Alliance at 8. 

23 Clayton Williams at 3-4. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 14 - 

required to report.”24 Apache reasons “that interstate pipelines and Section 311 and 

Hinshaw pipelines are held to the same prohibition on undue discrimination,”25 so the 

transparency regulations necessary to ensure compliance should be the same as well. 

C. Commission Determination

19. The Commission’s statutory authority to impose reporting requirements on 

Section 311 pipelines derives from NGPA section 311(c), which states, “any 

authorization granted under this section shall be under such terms and conditions as the 

Commission may prescribe.”26 This blanket authority is well-established as the ground 

for the previous reporting requirements for Form No. 549. As the Commission reasoned 

in the rulemaking establishing a previous version of this reporting requirement, “section 

311 tasks the Commission with the responsibility to ensure rates and charges are fair and 

equitable. For the Commission to carry out this responsibility, it is important for rates 

charged to be reported.”27 None of the commenters in this docket challenge the legality 

of the previous reporting requirements. The new reporting requirements are not so 

 24 Apache at 3. 

25 Apache at 6. 

26 15 U.S.C. 3371(c). 

27 Revisions to Uniform System of Accounts, Forms, Statements, and Reporting 

Requirements for Natural Gas Companies, Order No. 581, 60 FR 53019, 53050-51, 

FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,026 (1995), order on reh’g, Order No. 581-A, FERC Stats. & 

Regs. ¶ 31,032 (1996) (Order No. 581). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 15 - 

different in scope or burden as to generate serious questions about the Commission’s 

long-established statutory authority to require transactional reporting. 

20. TPA’s characterization that the NGPA limits the Commission to “minimal 

regulation,”28 is misleading and unsupported. While Congress sought to encourage 

intrastate pipelines to participate in the interstate transportation market by enabling them 

to do so without bearing the burden of full Commission regulation under the NGA,29 this 

does not mean that Commission regulation under NGPA section 311 was to be minimal. 

In Associated Gas Distributors v. FERC,

30 the court affirmed the Commission’s use of its 

NGPA section 311(c) conditioning authority to impose conditions necessary to assure 

that section 311 intrastate pipelines do not engage in undue discrimination. The court 

also stated “that the Commission has been correct in its belief that under § 311 it should 

assert the traditional regulatory approach in areas where it is needed to protect the public 

from market dominance by natural gas companies.”31 Requiring intrastate pipelines to 

file quarterly transactional reports to permit the Commission, shippers, and others to 

monitor for undue discrimination is fully within the scope of this conditioning authority. 

 28 TPA at 2. 

29 Mustang Energy Corp. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 859 F.2d 1447, 

1457 (10th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1019 (1988); see also EPGT Texas Pipeline, 

99 FERC ¶ 61,295 (2002). 

30 824 F.2d 981, 1002-1003 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (AGD). 

31 Id. at 1018 (citation omitted). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 16 - 

21. While the Commission will consider the burden question in more detail below, 

commenters have provided no persuasive evidence that the Final Rule is somehow so 

burdensome as to be beyond Commission’s jurisdiction. As compared to the 

requirements for interstate pipelines, the Final Rule is limited in the scope of the reports, 

the burden of publishing a report, and the frequency of the reports. As discussed below, 

the Commission held itself to these limitations so that the § 284.126(b) requirements 

should remain lighter than the § 284.13(b) interstate requirements and so that the value of 

the increased flow of information exceeds the increased burden of reporting. Any further 

lightening would risk undermining the Final Rule’s ability to increase transparency and 

improve the functioning of the transportation market. 

IV. Need for the Rule

A. NOPR

22. Upon review of the comments received in response to the NOI, the Commission 

held that its primary goal in revising the transactional reporting requirements for 

intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines would be to increase market transparency.32 As the 

Commission reasoned, “[t]ransactional information provides price transparency so 

shippers can make informed purchasing decisions, and also permits both shippers and the 

Commission to monitor actual transactions for evidence of possible abuse of market 

 32 NOPR at 1, 16. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 17 - 

power or undue discrimination.”33 The Commission found that certain types of 

additional information should be published in order to enable shippers, other market 

participants, and the Commission “to determine the extent to which particular 

transactions are comparable to one another,”34 a prerequisite for determining the rights of 

similarly situated shippers and for detecting undue discrimination. 

23. The Commission stated in the NOPR that it “believes that the revised reporting 

requirements ... avoid[] unduly burdensome requirements that might discourage ... 

participating in the interstate market.”35 In proposing the frequency, content, and format 

of the reports, the Commission sought the best balance of minimizing the reporting 

burden and maximizing the competitive effects on the markets. For example, the 

Commission proposed to host reporting data on its own website, and encouraged 

intrastate pipelines to comment on the preferred file format, in order to help the 

Commission lessen the information technology burden for pipelines.36

B. Comments

24. Several intrastate pipelines argue that the Commission failed to identify 

sufficiently compelling reasons for revising the reporting requirements. These 

 33 NOPR at 16. 

34 NOPR at 19. 

35 NOPR at 17. 

36 NOPR at 28-29. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 18 - 

commenters argue that further transparency is unnecessary, or that the proposal would 

have little practical benefit.37 Enogex, for example, argues that “[i]n view of the minimal 

amount of concern expressed by interstate pipelines ... the Commission should have 

terminated this proceeding.”38 AOG suggests that the Commission should, if not 

abandon the proposal, at least “more narrowly tailor[ it] to address a perceived problem 

[regarding] ... transparency.”39 TPA claims that further transparency in the section 311 

and Hinshaw transportation and storage markets is not needed because the United States’ 

natural gas commodity sales hubs are the most price-transparent in the world.40 TPA 

further complains that commenters have yet to “cite[] any specific examples of adverse 

market impacts” from the status quo, and “no entity has asked the Commission to expand 

the Section 311 reporting requirements to increase transparency,” and is therefore “not 

reasoned decision making.”41 

25. Several pipelines argue that the new regulations place them at a competitive 

disadvantage compared to pipelines that only operate under the NGA or under state 

jurisdiction, or compared to shippers. Similarly, several pipelines complain that the 

 37 E.g., OneOK at 3, TPA at 3. 

38 Enogex at 5. 

39 AOG at 1. 

40 TPA at 11. 

41 TPA at 2, 4, 10. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 19 - 

 

current proposal could be too burdensome,42 potentially causing some pipelines to 

abandon the Section 311 or Hinshaw markets.43 

26. Enogex and Enstor contend that the proposed reporting requirements would harm 

NGPA section 311 storage providers with market-based rates. Enogex argues that letting 

competitors see its rate information would limit its own ability to “capture rates”, calling 

it “tantamount to rescinding market-based rate authority.”44 Enogex asserts the 

Commission should at least exempt storage services provided at market-based rates. 

Enogex argues that sufficient public information already exists on storage services, and 

that the Commission has stated when it authorizes market-based rates that such providers 

lack market power, thus reducing the need for regulatory scrutiny.45 Enstor is also 

concerned that the proposed reporting requirements, particularly the requirement to report 

quarterly revenues received from each storage customer, would allow customers “to 

recreate the storage positions” that resulted in another customer receiving favorable 

rates.46 Shippers, Enstor argues, should not have more information about the pipeline 

than the pipeline has about its shippers. 

42 E.g., AGA at 7; AOG at 7; Jefferson at 2, 6. 

43 E.g., Enogex at 8; TPA at 14. 

44 Enogex at 8. 

45 Enogex at 11-12. 

46 Enstor at 7. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 20 - 

 

27. Atmos goes further, warning “of potential collusion or other anticompetitive 

behaviors that can be facilitated by untimely public disclosure of transaction-specific 

information.”47

28. Other commenters, however, applaud the NOPR, arguing that the information 

sought in the reports would help enable the market to function more efficiently. Cities, 

Clayton Williams, and Texas Alliance ask the Commission to expand reporting 

requirements in order to provide greater transparency, especially in the Texas market.48 

Cities and others contend that this “lack of competition in the intrastate pipeline market in 

Texas” could be ameliorated by “making information and records available both to the 

public and to shippers.”49 For example, Clayton Williams provides a detailed narrative 

suggesting that it could have pursued allegations that a pipeline has been engaging in 

unlawful business practices, if only it had more publicly available information to support 

its allegation.50 

47 Atmos at 5 (citing Transparency Provisions of Section 23 of the Natural Gas 

Act, Order No. 704, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,260 at P 88 (2007); order on reh’g, 

Transparency Provisions of Section 23 of the Natural Gas Act, Order No. 704-A, FERC 

Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,275 (2008); order on reh’g, Transparency Provisions of Section 23 of 

the Natural Gas Act, Order No. 704-B, 125 FERC ¶ 61,302 (2008)). 

48 Cities at 3; Clayton Williams at 1; Texas Alliance at 8. 

49 Cities at 2, 4. 

50 Clayton Williams at 5-15. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 21 - 

 

29. These commenters further argue that lack of transparency harms the integrity of 

national price indices,51 and that the Commission’s proposed new regulations will help 

state-level transparency, and thus state-level markets, as well.52 Apache also responds to 

TPA’s argument that interstate pipelines have not sought out the proposed regulation: “It 

can be expected that most interstate pipelines would hope to levelize the playing field by 

eliminating regulation for all pipelines, rather than increasing regulation for all.”53 

However, Apache urges, new regulations are warranted based on the expected usefulness 

of improved access to market information. 

30. These commenters also argue that publicly available data is vital to eliminate 

unfair advantages.54 For example, Apache argues that intrastate and interstate pipelines 

both face the same economic environment and therefore should report the same 

information.55 Constellation argues that existing regulations harm the market by leaving 

shippers without enough information to “make fully informed purchasing decisions.”56 

51 Texas Alliance at 4. 

52 Cities at 4; Texas Alliance at 6. 

53 Apache at 8. 

54 E.g., Yates at 6. 

55 Apache at 7-8. 

56 Constellation at 4. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 22 - 

Texas Alliance and Clayton Williams, likewise, argue that transparency helps limit the 

abuse of the monopoly power that some pipelines have over upstream shippers.57 

31. Commenters also dismiss the notion that the current proposal could be too 

burdensome.58 Apache argues, “[a] Section 311 pipeline is not going to forego the 

opportunity to earn money merely because it must comply with a transactional posting 

requirement.”59 As Texas Alliance phrases it, the reason why the rulemaking “is so 

strongly opposed by the Texas intrastate pipelines and their association [is that i]t 

threatens to let sunshine in where they prefer the dark.”60

C. Commission Determination

32. In this Final Rule, the Commission is adopting the proposed quarterly 

transactional reporting requirements for section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines, with several 

clarifications discussed in subsequent sections of this rule. The Commission finds that 

these transactional reporting requirements appropriately balance the need for increased 

transparency of intrastate and Hinshaw pipeline transactions, while avoiding unduly 

burdensome requirements that might discourage such pipelines from participating in the 

interstate market. 

 57 Texas Alliance at 9-10; Clayton Williams at 12. 

58 E.g., Yates at 7. 

59 Apache at 8. 

60 Texas Alliance at 3. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 23 - 

33. Transactional information provides price transparency so shippers can make 

informed purchasing decisions, and also permits both shippers and the Commission to 

monitor actual transactions for evidence of possible abuse of market power or undue 

discrimination. The existing reporting requirements in § 284.126 are inadequate for this 

purpose. For example, the annual reports of transportation transactions required by 

existing § 284.126(b) do not include (1) the rates charged by the pipeline under each 

contract, (2) the receipt and delivery points and zones or segments covered by each 

contract, (3) the quantity of natural gas the shipper is entitled to transport, store, or 

deliver, (4) the duration of the contract, or (5) whether there is an affiliate relationship 

between the pipeline and the shipper. Similarly, the semi-annual storage reports required 

by existing § 284.126(c) do not include the rates charged by the storage provider in each 

contract, the duration of each contract, or whether there is an affiliate relationship 

between the storage provider and its customer. 

34. However, all this information is necessary to allow the Commission, shippers, and 

others to determine the extent to which particular transactions are comparable to one 

another for purposes of monitoring for undue discrimination. For example, contracts for 

service on different parts of a pipeline system or with different durations may not be 

comparable to one another. In addition, the requirement that affiliate relationships 

between the pipeline and its shippers be reported will allow the Commission and 

interested parties to monitor whether the pipeline is favoring its affiliates. The additional 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 24 - 

information required to be reported by the Final Rule is also necessary to allow shippers 

to make informed decisions about their capacity purchases. Shippers need to know the 

price paid for capacity over a particular path to enable them to decide, for instance, how 

much to offer for the specific capacity they seek. 

35. The Commission also finds that the lack of transparency ultimately harms not only 

shippers, but the pipelines themselves, whose individual actions to protect market 

advantage work collectively to make intrastate transportation less attractive. Without 

transparency and trust, efficient free-market allocation of resources is not possible. As 

the specific example reported by Clayton Williams shows, the current market’s lack of 

transparency fosters, at the very least, an atmosphere of mistrust. While TPA may 

plausibly assert that natural gas commodity sales hubs are the most price-transparent 

commodity markets in the world, the same cannot be said of the market for intrastate 

transportation. It is the Commission’s obligation to ensure transparency at all stages of 

the natural gas market over which it has jurisdiction, because inefficiencies and unfair 

treatment in one stage of the market can lead to harm elsewhere in the market. 

Accordingly, we find that there is a need for revised regulations that improve market 

transparency. 

36. Exempting storage services provided at market-based rates is also unwarranted. A 

Commission finding that a service provider lacks market power should not be read to 

mean that its shippers are at no risk of undue discrimination or other unlawful practices. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 25 - 

 

Furthermore, it is still in the public interest to disseminate market information concerning 

the transactions of market-based storage services. As the Commission reasoned in a 

previous rulemaking, “[i]t is even more critical for the Commission to review pricing 

when the Commission is relying on competition to regulate rates, rather than scrutinizing 

the underlying cost of service. Thus, we will not exempt intrastate storage companies 

charging market-based rates from the requirement to file ... reports.”61 Posting rates 

charged in previous market-based transactions leads to greater transparency and 

competition. As the Commission found, in Order No. 637-A, with respect to alleged 

competitive harm to individual firms: 

while disclosure of the transactional information may cause 

some commercial disadvantage to individual entities, it will 

benefit the market as a whole, by improving efficiency and 

competition. Buyers of services need good information in 

order to make good choices among competing capacity 

offerings. Without the provision of such information, 

competition suffers.62

61 Revisions to Uniform System of Accounts, Forms, Statements, and Reporting 

Requirements for Natural Gas Companies, Order No. 581, 60 FR 53019, 53051, FERC 

Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,026 (1995), order on reh’g, Order No. 581-A, FERC Stats. & Regs. 

¶ 31,032 (1996) (Order No. 581). 

62 Order No. 637-A, at 31,614-615. Enstor is concerned that the requirement to 

include the revenues received from each interruptible storage customer during a quarter 

will cause competitive damage, alleging that such information will allow customers to 

recreate the storage positions that resulted in another customer receiving favorable rates. 

However, the existing semi-annual storage reports required by § 284.126(c) already 

require the reporting of revenues received from each customer. Increasing the frequency 

of such revenue reports from semi-annually to quarterly would not appear to significantly 

(continued) 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 26 - 

 

37. Further, we are convinced the burdens to respondents will be small relative to the 

gains that the new regulations will bring to the market. The burden test goes to the heart 

of our regulatory authority: one purpose of the NGPA was to induce intrastate pipelines 

to participate in the interstate market by ensuring that it would not be unduly burdensome 

to do so.63 As discussed in more detail below, we are minimizing the burden of these 

new transactional reporting requirements in several ways. For example, we are not 

imposing a daily posting requirement, such as we have required of interstate pipelines. 

Therefore, the transactional reports required by the Final Rule will not require section 

311 and Hinshaw pipelines to maintain internet websites. We are also clarifying several 

of the specific proposed reporting requirements as requested by commenters in a manner 

that should reduce the burden of compliance. Finally, while the reports must be filed in a 

standardized electronic format, the Commission will develop an electronic form in a PDF 

format that can be downloaded from the FERC website and saved to a user’s computer 

desktop. In addition, the Commission will develop an XML Schema that can be used by 

Respondents who wish to file an XML file. 

38. In addition, since the establishment of the first intrastate pipeline reporting 

requirements, electronic communications have reduced the cost of reporting transactional 

affect this concern. 

63 Associated Gas Distributors v. FERC, 824 F.2d 981, 1001-1003 (D.C. Cir. 

1987). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 27 - 

 

information. Given these advances in data management, collecting and compiling 

information for the proposed quarterly reports should be no more burdensome at present 

than it was to manage the lesser amount of information required when the Commission 

first established transactional reporting for intrastate pipelines. 

39. We consider the question of undue burden not only in isolation, but in the context 

of a pipeline’s entire jurisdictional business, and relative to the benefits to the market.64 

The new requirements aim to empower shippers “to determine the extent to which 

particular transactions are comparable to one another.”65 In this way, the Commission 

gives shippers increased ability to protect themselves from undue discrimination, and 

thus be less dependent on Commission investigations to protect their rights. The new 

64 See, e.g., Transparency Provisions of Section 23 of the Natural Gas Act, Order 

No. 704-A, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,275 at P 17 (2008) (“While we acknowledge that 

removing purchases from volumes that must be reported on Form No. 552 would 

somewhat reduce the reporting burden on certain market participants, we continue to 

believe that the substantial benefits of having such data publicly available outweigh this 

burden.”), order on reh’g, Order No. 704-B, 125 FERC ¶ 61,302 (2008). See also

Pipeline Posting Requirements under Section 23 of the Natural Gas Act, Order No. 720, 

73 FR 73494, FERC Stats. & Regs. 31,283, at P 56 (2008) (“We also believe that the 

goals of this Final Rule outweigh the burdens to be placed upon non-interstate and 

interstate pipelines.”); order on reh’g, Order No. 720-A, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 35,302, 

at P 116 (2010) (“The Commission understands commenters’ arguments that posting new 

points on a rolling basis would be burdensome for major non-interstate pipelines, but 

believes that these burdens are overstated and substantially outweighed by the 

transparency benefit of timely posting of newly eligible points.”). 

65 NOPR at 19. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 28 - 

reporting requirements also provide information that may assist state and local regulatory 

bodies, without interfering in their autonomy of action. 

40. In response to the pipelines that suggest that they have an overriding 

confidentiality interest, or that even raise the specter that increased transparency may 

cause unlawful behavior, we disagree. The Commission’s decades of experience in 

enforcement have confirmed the wisdom of what jurists have long held in the related 

realm of financial disclosure: “confidentiality interest is not absolute, however, and can 

be overcome by a sufficiently weighty government purpose.... ‘Sunlight is said to be the 

best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.’”66

V. Details of Pipeline Posting Requirements

A. Overview and Summary of Requirements

41. The Final Rule, in accordance with the NOPR, requires Form No. 549D 

transactional reports under § 284.126(b) to be filed on a quarterly basis, to include certain 

additional types of information and cover storage as well as transportation, and to be filed 

in a uniform electronic format and posted on the Commission’s web site without 

redaction. 

 66 Statharos v. New York City Taxi & Limousine Comm’n, 198 F.3d 317, 323 (2d 

Cir. N.Y. 1999) (citing Louis Brandeis, Other People’s Money and How the Bankers Use 

It 62 (1914)). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 29 - 

42. In addition, the Final Rule clarifies or amends the NOPR on several points 

elaborated below. We clarify that pipelines are to file their Form No. 549D transactional 

reports on a contract-by-contract basis for each shipper, rather than on a transaction-bytransaction basis. We adopt a common identification requirement for shippers. For 

receipt and delivery points, however, pipelines need only use an industry common code 

where one is already in use, and may report wells and other gathering systems in the 

aggregate. We clarify that pipelines should continue to only report on their jurisdictional 

activities. Finally, we provide several clarifications regarding the data format and 

technical protocols, with the result being a flexible framework similar to the “simple 

spreadsheet” concept proposed by some commenters. 

B. Definition of Reportable Service

1. NOPR

43. The version of § 284.126(b)(1) proposed in the NOPR calls for a quarterly report 

that contains information on “each transportation and storage service provided.” Neither 

the proposed regulations nor the preamble to the NOPR directly defined the word 

“service.” In the preamble, in the context of rejecting daily posting, the Commission 

rejected the option of “daily postings of information about individual transactions.”67 

 67 NOPR at 25. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 30 - 

However, the preamble also states that pipelines should report “additional information 

concerning each transaction.”68 

2. Comments

44. Some commenters express concern that the NOPR’s phrasing is unclear as to 

whether pipelines are to make their reports on a contract-by-contract basis or a 

transaction-by-transaction basis.69 They point out that a shipper may schedule numerous 

transactions during a quarter under a single contract. For example, a shipper may have a 

single interruptible contract, but may schedule separate transactions at different rates 

using different receipt and delivery points on a daily basis. AGA, for example, “urges the 

Commission to clarify that Hinshaw pipelines are required to report their ‘contracts’ on a 

quarterly basis in a manner similar to what they currently report [rather than r]equiring 

information to be reported separately for each individual ‘transaction.’”70 Other 

commenters are concerned that the Commission intends to require separate reports for 

each transaction. TPA, for example, complains that under “the onerous approach ... 

proposed in the NOPR,” a pipeline with “multiple daily transactions under single 

contracts could [be] ... reporting thousands of individual transportation transactions.”71 

 68 NOPR at 20. 

69 E.g., Jefferson at 11. 

70 AGA at 2; see also AGA at 9-10. 

71 TPA at 4-5. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 31 - 

45. Apache and Jefferson take the opportunity to propose alternative approaches to the 

question of what should be reported. Apache argues that “[f]ull transparency regarding 

all natural gas transactions on a real-time basis, comparable to the reporting requirements 

of interstate pipelines, is the only comprehensive way to protect natural gas consumers to 

ensure the integrity of the market.”72 Nevertheless, Apache clarifies that it supports the 

NOPR as “a helpful improvement over the status quo.”73 Jefferson argues that the level 

of detail proposed in the NOPR for the reports is too burdensome and too far beyond 

what is required to address the actual disparities between interstate and intrastate 

reporting.74 Accordingly, Jefferson proposes limiting the report to 22 fields.75 

3. Commission Determination

46. We clarify that pipelines are to report the required transactional information in 

Form No. 549D on a contract-by-contract basis for each shipper, rather than on a 

transaction-by-transaction basis. In general, a pipeline will be required to make a 

separate data entry for each of a shipper’s contracts under a given rate schedule. The 

pipeline should aggregate all nominations and shipments under each contract for the 

quarter. In other words, while the reports will contain information on each transaction, 

 72 Apache at 3. 

73 Apache at 3. 

74 Jefferson at 16. 

75 Jefferson at 15-16. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 32 - 

that information will be aggregated by contract for each shipper for each type of service 

provided. 

47. If the pipeline charges a shipper multiple prices for different transactions or 

shipments under a single contract and service, the pipeline would still file a single report 

for that contract, with the following information. The pipeline would report the volumeweighted average rate charged under that contract for the quarter. The pipeline would 

also include a list of all the various rates charged during the quarter in the appropriate 

comment field for that contract. The pipeline would not be required to state the volumes 

associated with each rate or the dates each rate was charged. Similarly, the pipeline 

would list the receipt and delivery points used during each quarter for each contract, but 

is not required to separately report the rates charged and volumes received and delivered 

at each point. 

48. We decline the opportunity to radically alter the type of information reported, as 

suggested by Apache and Jefferson. Based on the comments in this docket, the 

Commission believes that refinements to the NOPR are more certain to ensure a fair 

balance of the additional transparency benefits that would accrue to the market versus the 

administrative costs of compliance. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 33 - 

C. Reporting Frequency

1. NOPR

49. In the NOPR, the Commission found that increasing the frequency of the 

§ 284.126(b) transactional reports from annual to quarterly would provide market 

participants and the Commission with more timely and more useful information 

concerning the transactions entered into by intrastate pipelines. The Commission stated 

that it sought to balance the benefits of increased transactional transparency against the 

need to avoid creating undue burden for the responding pipelines. The Commission 

highlighted that “one primary difference will remain between the reporting requirements 

for interstate pipelines and the Section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines: interstate pipelines 

will post transactional information daily on their websites, while Section 311 and 

Hinshaw pipelines will submit this information in a quarterly report to the 

Commission.”76 The Commission noted alternative proposals from commenters, but 

found that a quarterly filing requirement would strike the appropriate balance. 

2. Comments

50. Most commenters support quarterly reporting. Even some parties who urge the 

Commission to cancel the rulemaking docket nevertheless state that they could accept 

limited quarterly reporting.77 Some shippers, while generally supportive of the NOPR, 

 76 NOPR at P 23. 

77 TPA at 6; Atmos at 5. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 34 - 

actions.80 

state that they would prefer daily reporting is the best way to ensure transparency and 

competitive markets.78 The pipelines, however, consider the possibility of daily 

reporting to be “very costly, particularly if daily posting on a website was required,”79

due “to the [sheer] volume of reporting” of each day’s trans

3. Commission Determination

51. The Final Rule adopts the NOPR’s proposal to require quarterly reporting by 

section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines. The Commission continues to find that a quarterly 

reporting requirement strikes the appropriate balance of increasing transparency without 

imposing undue burdens on section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines. One purpose of the 

NGPA was to induce intrastate pipelines to participate in the interstate market by 

ensuring that it would not be unduly burdensome to do so.81 This participation by 

intrastate pipelines eliminates the need for duplication of facilities between interstate and 

intrastate pipelines.82 Thus, as the court has stated, “Congress intended that intrastate 

 78 Apache at 2-3; Constellation at 4; Yates at 5-6. 

79 Duke at 5. 

80 TPA at 20. 

81 AGD, 824 F.2d at 1001-1003. 

82 EPGT Texas Pipeline, L.P., 99 FERC ¶ 61,295 at 62,252. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 35 - 

 

pipelines should be able to compete in the transportation market without bearing the 

burden of full regulation by FERC under the Natural Gas Act.”83 

52. In the NOPR, the Commission stated that a daily reporting requirement would 

require all intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines to maintain their own websites for this 

purpose, and such daily postings of information about individual transactions would be 

significantly more burdensome than a quarterly reporting requirement. As described 

above, several pipeline commenters have reaffirmed that a daily posting requirement 

would be very costly. In addition, Constellation, while stating that daily posting would 

provide more transparency, agrees that at this time such a requirement appears unduly 

burdensome.84 

53. Only two commenters request that the Commission require daily reporting. They 

contend that real-time reporting of individual transaction data would allow more 

immediate monitoring of whether the pipeline is engaging in undue discrimination and 

provide more useful price transparency. The Commission recognizes that daily posting 

could enable shippers and others to observe potentially discriminatory actions more 

quickly. However, the quarterly reports will provide similar information, enabling 

83 Mustang Energy Corp. v. Federal Energy Regulatory Comm’n, 859 F.2d 1447, 

1457 (10th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 490 U.S. 1019 (1988); see also EPGT Texas Pipeline, 

99 FERC ¶ 61,295 (2002). 

84 Constellation at 4. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 36 - 

shippers and others to file complaints if they believe such information suggests a pattern 

of discrimination by the pipeline. Given the interest in avoiding placing undue burdens 

on section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines, the Commission finds that the quarterly reporting 

requirement, together with our other changes to the reporting requirements including the 

requirement that all reports be public, appropriately balances the need for more 

transparency with the interest in encouraging section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to 

participate in the interstate pipeline grid. 

D. Identification of Receipt and Delivery Points and Shippers

1. NOPR

54. The NOPR proposed requiring intrastate pipelines to report several new elements 

of information, among them the primary receipt and delivery points covered by the 

contract. The NOPR proposed that the reports include the “industry common code” for 

each receipt and delivery point in order to minimize any ambiguity as to what receipt and 

delivery points are being reported and to ensure that all reporting pipelines identify such 

points in a consistent manner.85 Similarly, the NOPR proposed that, when reporting the 

identity of a given shipper, respondents should include not only the full legal name, but 

also an “identification number” for each shipper.86 

 85 NOPR at P 33. 

86 NOPR at P 33. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 37 - 

55. However, the NOPR stated that, while the Commission was aware of some shipper 

identification standards and receipt and delivery point codes that are used in the natural 

gas industry (for example, Dun & Bradstreet, Inc.’s D-U-N-S identification numbers for 

shippers), the Commission was reluctant to choose any particular standard without input 

as to that standard’s cost-effectiveness and usefulness. Accordingly, the Commission 

sought comment on two related questions: (1) What sort of shipper identification 

numbers and receipt and delivery point common industry codes are currently used or 

readily available to section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines?; and (2) Which shipper 

identification standard or standards and receipt and delivery point codes, if any, should be 

used?87

2. Comments

56. Some commenters argue that using industry common codes to report receipt and 

delivery points would be highly burdensome, due to the cost of obtaining common code 

identifiers from a third-party registry. According to Jefferson, the annual charge for 

licensing common location codes is $1,670 for 1-20 points, $3,506 for 21-100 points, and 

$5,428 for 100+ points.88 Enogex protests that it “does not have ‘primary’ and 

‘secondary’ points on its system, but rather uses standard receipt and delivery points. As 

 87 NOPR at P 34. 

88 Jefferson at 9. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 38 - 

 

a result, Enogex does not have ... common codes,” and urges that the Commission reject 

this element as “base[d] ... on the business practices of interstate pipelines.”89 TPA 

voices similar concerns. Jefferson and ONEOK suggest letting respondents use their own 

meter codes instead. AGA suggests, as a compromise, that pipelines that do not already 

use common codes should be allowed “to use an interstate pipeline’s Data Reference 

Number (DRN) for points of interconnection with an interstate pipeline and use [their 

own] proprietary code where a DRN has not already been assigned.”90

57. AOG and Cranberry, whose pipelines perform gathering functions, state that they 

do not keep organized records of who has contract rights to which receipt or delivery 

points.91 AOG proposes that, instead of differentiating among receipt points that are gas 

wells, they “would simply identify all receipt points as ‘AOG system.’”92 Cranberry 

proposes that the Commission waive the requirement to report receipt and delivery points 

where, as with their system, all shippers have access to all or numerous points, and no 

common industry codes exist.93 

89 Enogex at 12. 

90 AGA at 2. 

91 AOG at 6; Cranberry at 5. 

92 AOG at 10. 

93 Cranberry at 6. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 39 - 

58. The proposal to require use of standardized shipper identification numbers also 

raised some concerns. Jefferson estimated that “it will cost approximately $24,000 

annually to utilize a third-party service to verify a unique shipper identification number 

such as a D-U-N-S® number,” and suggests removing this requirement.94 TPA likewise 

argues that intrastate providers would have no use for D-U-N-S numbers other than filing 

the proposed reports. TPA proposes having the public reports only “contain coded 

references to individual shippers and points, with the key to the code available to the 

Commission” for investigation but otherwise kept confidential; in the alternative TPA 

suggests that the exact legal name of the shipper should be sufficient.95 Most pipelines, 

however, did not object to standardized shipper identification, and “AGA supports the 

use of the D-U-N-S® Number as a common company identifier.”96 

3. Commission Determination

59. We acknowledge the concern of some pipelines that requiring all pipelines to use 

industry common codes for receipt and delivery points could prove to be expensive, and 

we have adjusted § 284.126(b)(1)(iv) of the final regulations accordingly. Where 

respondents already use Industry Common Codes in their existing business practices 

(such as wherever an intrastate system interconnects with an NGA interstate system), 

 94 Jefferson at 9. 

95 TPA at 22. 

96 AGA at 2. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 40 - 

they must use those codes in their reports. However, where respondents do not use 

Industry Common Codes, they should report using the same point identification system 

that they use for scheduling with shippers. In addition, respondents who do not use 

Industry Common Codes must publish a list of all the jurisdictional receipt and delivery 

point codes they use for scheduling, along with the county and state of each point, and the 

name of the jurisdictional pipeline (if any) that interconnects at each point. This list 

should be filed as a separate narrative alongside the respondent’s initial report; if the list 

should change at any time, the respondent should include a narrative alongside its next 

quarterly report updating the list. 

60. The Commission also acknowledges the particular challenges in reporting receipt 

points for systems that perform a gathering function. Accordingly, for gas received from 

dedicated wells or gathering lines, respondents may instead note as the receipt point the 

common point where the gathered gas is considered to enter the pipeline’s transmission 

system. Respondents who use this method in their reports must develop their list of 

jurisdictional receipt and delivery points accordingly. 

61. In contrast with receipt and delivery points, however, standardized shipper 

identification is not unduly burdensome in comparison to the benefit to the Commission 

and market participants of being certain of the true identity of a pipeline’s shippers. As 

of the date that the Commission approves this Final Rule, we observe that it is possible to 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 41 - 

both create a D-U-N-S number97 and search for any company’s D-U-N-S number98 for 

free. Further, since standardized shipper identification numbers, by their nature, do not 

change with time, respondents will not need to spend time verifying each number every 

quarter. Accordingly, the time and expense spent on verifying the identity of one’s 

shippers should be reasonable. 

E. Requests for Exemptions and Safe Harbor

1. NOPR

62. In the NOI, the Commission sought comment on whether any of the proposed 

reporting requirements should exempt certain classes of respondents, based on the type of 

service provided or on the respondent’s size. Having considered the comments received, 

the Commission did not provide for any exemptions in the NOPR. The Commission 

reasoned that so long as reports were hosted on the FERC website and no more frequent 

than quarterly, they would not be unduly burdensome to prepare and file.99

 97 Available at http://smallbusiness.dnb.com/establish-your-business/12334338-

1.html. 

98 Available at 

https://smallbusiness.dnb.com/ePlatform/servlet/DUNSAdvancedCompanySearch?storeI

d=10001&catalogId=70001. 

99 See, e.g., NOPR at P 14, 24. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 42 - 

2. Comments

63. AOG asks the Commission to exempt companies with de minimis jurisdictional 

activity. In particular, AOG suggests a cut-off “somewhere between 2.2 and 50 million 

MMBtu,”100 or for entities with under 500 employees. ONEOK similarly argues that it 

should be excluded, but does not proffer a cut-off point. 

64. In addition to the above exemption requests, AGA suggests two clarifications as a 

means of minimizing the burden for all respondents. First, AGA asks the Commission to 

“clearly state that Hinshaw pipelines are required to report only those contracts 

authorized by their limited jurisdictional certificates and are not required to report on 

retail or intrastate activities that are not regulated by the Commission.”101 Second, “AGA 

also recommends that the Commission explicitly state as part of the Final Rule in this 

proceeding that it will not prosecute, penalize or otherwise impose remedies on parties 

for inadvertent errors in reporting.”102

3. Commission Determination

65. The Commission rejects the requests for exemptions based on size or type of 

activity. As the Commission reasoned in the NOPR, since the reports and data are to be 

hosted on the FERC website and filed no more frequently than quarterly, they should not 

 100 AOG at 8. 

101 AGA at 1; see also AGA at 8-9. 

102 AGA at 3; see also AGA at 15-16. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 43 - 

be unduly burdensome to prepare and file. The Commission has not exempted any 

section 311 or Hinshaw pipelines from filing the existing reports required by § 284.126, 

using current Form No. 549. With the clarifications made to the technical protocols 

discussed below, the Commission is confident that, after the transition to the new 

reporting format, it will not be significantly more burdensome for pipelines to prepare 

and file each Form No. 549D report required by this rule, than it has been to file the 

existing Form No. 549 Intrastate Pipeline Annual Transportation report. In addition, if a 

pipeline has de minimis jurisdictional activity, it follows that it should have relatively few 

transactions to report, thereby minimizing its burden of completing the necessary report. 

66. We grant AGA’s requested clarification that Hinshaw pipelines are required to 

report only those contracts authorized by their limited jurisdictional certificates and are 

not required to report on retail or intrastate activities that are not regulated by the 

Commission. Similarly section 311 pipelines are only required to report contracts for 

NGPA section 311 interstate service, and not contracts for non-jurisdictional intrastate 

service. 

67. In response to the AGA’s second request, the Commission states that because 

Form. No. 549D is a new information collection, we will focus any enforcement efforts 

on instances of intentional submission of false, incomplete, or misleading information to 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 44 - 

the Commission, of failure to report in the first instance, or of failure to exercise due 

diligence in compiling and reporting data.103

F. Public Status of Reports

1. NOPR

68. The NOPR proposed to require that the reports filed pursuant to revised 

§ 284.126(c) be posted without any information redacted as privileged. The Commission 

stated that currently, when a report is filed subject to a request for privileged treatment, 

any person desiring to see the report must file a formal request, pursuant to the Freedom 

of Information Act (FOIA) and § 385.1112 of the Commission’s Rules of Practice and 

Procedure,104 that the Commission make the report public. Due to the expense and delay 

caused by this additional step, in practice these requests have been infrequent. The 

Commission stated that allowing pricing information to be confidential undermines the 

Commission’s goals of preventing undue discrimination and promoting price 

transparency, while a prohibition on the confidential treatment of § 284.126(b) reports 

would further all of these policy goals. The Commission noted concerns about the 

commercial sensitivity of the information to be reported, but found, based on the 

 103 The Commission adopted a similar guideline in Transparency Provisions of 

Section 23 of the Natural Gas Act, Order No. 704, 73 FR 1014 (Jan. 4, 2008), FERC 

Stats. and Regs. ¶ 31,260 at P 114 (2007), order on reh’g, Order No. 704-A, 73 FR 55726 

(Sept. 26, 2008), FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,275 (2008), order on reh’g, Order No. 704-B, 

125 FERC ¶ 61,302 (2008). 

104 18 CFR § 385.1112. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 45 - 

comments filed, that “a quarterly reporting requirement should allay any concerns 

regarding the commercial sensitivity of contract data.”105 

69. In addition to the policy considerations, the Commission found that its governing 

statutes support public treatment of data reported both by Hinshaw pipelines and by 

NGPA Section 311 pipelines. Accordingly, the NOPR proposed that the standardized 

reporting form include a statement that the report will be public. 

2. Comments

70. TPA and some individual pipelines argue that the Commission must retain the 

traditional confidentiality process in Rule 1112 and § 388.112 of the Commission’s 

regulations.106 TPA argues that a policy of public disclosure would violate both 

Commission precedent and § 388.112, which call for case-by-case review of requests to 

release information.107 ONEOK and TPA argue that complying with the proposed 

regulations could violate the confidentiality provisions of existing contracts.108 Enstor 

and ONEOK suggest that many market-oriented shippers and large industrial end-users 

would seek to avoid Section 311 transactions in order to protect their trading positions.109

 105 NOPR at P 31. 

106 E.g., Enogex at 8. 

107 TPA at 18. 

108 TPA at 5, 16-17; ONEOK at 5. 

109 Enstor at 9; ONEOK at 5. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 46 - 

71. Enstor particularly urges the Commission to amend the proposed 

§ 284.126(b)(1)(viii) requirement to report “Total revenues received for the shipper.” 

Enstor argues that, when applied to “interruptible storage services (such as parking and 

lending),” this requirement would compel reporting of information “that is not currently 

disclosed by interstate natural gas companies.”110 Especially if unredacted, reporting 

individual shipper revenues “even on a quarterly basis” would do “catastrophic” damage 

to a pipeline’s “business model, as well as to market liquidity.”111

72. However Apache, Cities, Clayton Williams, Texas Alliance, and Yates expressly 

support public reporting, in order for the reports to serve the purported goal of benefitting 

market participants.112 Clayton Williams cites the specific example of Texas’s “grossly 

inadequate”113 state-level data, which it claims is responsible for rampant discriminatory 

behavior in Texas markets. 

3. Commission Determination

73. As we clarified in the preceding section, the revised reporting requirements 

adopted by this rule apply only to contracts for interstate service which are subject to our 

jurisdiction under the NGA in the case of Hinshaw pipelines or NGPA section 311 in the 

 110 Enstor at 6. 

111 Enstor at 7. 

112 E.g., Apache at 10-11. 

113 Clayton Williams at 1. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 47 - 

case of intrastate pipelines. While we regulate the interstate services of Hinshaw 

pipelines in a more light-handed manner than we regulate interstate pipelines, 

nevertheless the courts have made clear that such regulation of Hinshaw pipelines must 

comply with the basic requirements of the NGA, including sections 4 and 5 of the 

NGA.114 In SGRM, the Commission pointed out that NGA section 4(c) requires that 

“under such rules and regulations as the Commission may prescribe, every natural gas 

company shall . . . keep open for public inspection . . . all rates . . . together with all 

contracts which in any manner affect or relate to such rates.” The Commission 

concluded that: 

Although the NGA gives the Commission some discretion 

with respect to how to provide for the disclosure of rate 

schedules and contracts, clearly the public disclosure of rate 

schedules and related contracts, in some manner, is 

required.115

74. Accordingly, our requirement that the quarterly reports of Hinshaw pipelines 

concerning their jurisdictional contracts be posted without any information redacted is 

simply carrying out NGA section 4(c)’s requirement for public disclosure of rate and 

contract information “under such regulations and regulations as the Commission may 

 114 Consumers Energy Co. v. FERC, 226 F.3d 777 (6th Cir. 2000), holding that the 

Commission must comply with the requirements of NGA section 5 in order to require a 

Hinshaw pipeline to modify its rates for interstate service. 

115 SGRM, 125 FERC ¶ 61,191 at P 23, quoting Order No. 637-A, at 31,614. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 48 - 

 

prescribe.” Furthermore, NGA section 23(a)(1) directs the Commission “to facilitate 

price transparency in markets for the sale or transportation of physical natural gas in 

interstate commerce.”116

75. While the NGPA does not contain an express public disclosure provision similar 

to NGA section 4(c), Section 311(c) of the NGPA authorizes the Commission to 

prescribe the “terms and conditions” under which intrastate pipelines perform interstate 

service. Requiring NGPA section 311 pipelines to publicly disclose transactional 

information for the purpose of allowing shippers and others to monitor NGPA Section 

311 transactions for undue discrimination is well within the Commission’s broad 

conditioning authority under Section 311(c).117

76. We reject TPA’s argument that the Commission procedural rules in §§ 385.1112 

and 388.112 require the Commission to allow pipelines to request confidential or 

privileged treatment of their transactional reports. The existence of those procedural 

rules does not prevent the Commission from establishing, in this rulemaking proceeding 

after notice and comment, a category of document, i.e. the Form 549D reports required 

by this rule, which must be made public in order for the Commission to carry out its 

116 15 U.S.C. 717t-2(a)(1). See Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-58, 

§ 316 (“Natural Gas Market Transparency Rules”), 119 Stat. 594 (2005). 

117 See, e.g., AGD, 824 F.2d at 1015 – 1018 (D.C. Cir. 1987) (affirming the 

Commission’s use of Section 311(c) to require intrastate pipelines to permit their 

interstate sales customers to convert to transportation-only service). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 49 - 

 

statutory responsibilities under the NGA and the NGPA. Such automatic disclosure 

requirements already apply to various other reports filed with the Commission, including 

for example the FERC Form Nos. 2, 2-A, and 3-Q financial reports required by §§ 260.1, 

260.2, and 260.300.118 

77. As a matter of policy, we find that Hinshaw and section 311 pipelines must file 

their Form No. 549D reports as public in order to achieve the Final Rule’s purpose of 

improving transparency, monitoring discrimination, and fostering efficient markets. The 

Commission recognizes the concern of some pipelines that disclosure of commercially 

sensitive information will enable a shipper to know what the pipeline is charging other 

shippers and thus prevent the pipeline from being able to negotiate the best price for the 

services it offers. In Order No. 637-A, the Commission exercised its discretion 

concerning the manner of public disclosure to delay interstate pipelines’ posting of 

transactional information until the first nomination of service under the contract, rather 

than requiring posting upon execution of the contract. The Commission stated that this 

would temper any potential disadvantages from the public disclosure requirement, 

because the first nomination could be significantly after the contract was executed. In 

118 See Quarterly Financial Reporting and Revisions to the Annual Reports, Order 

No. 646, FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,158, Appendix B at 48 (“This report is also 

considered to be a non-confidential public use form.”), order on reh’g, Order No. 646-A, 

FERC Stats. & Regs. ¶ 31,163 (2004); accord Instructions for Filing FERC Forms 2, 2-A, 

and 3-Q at I. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 50 - 

light of our more light-handed regulation of Hinshaw and section 311 pipelines and our 

desire to minimize undue burdens on such pipelines, we are permitting a longer delay 

between contract execution and disclosure by only requiring such reports to be filed 

quarterly. This should temper any potential adverse effects from disclosure. 

78. However, public disclosure of all information in the quarterly reports is necessary 

to permit all market participants to monitor the market and detect undue discrimination. 

The Commission also expects and hopes that market participants will use the information 

from these reports in order to educate themselves about market conditions. Regardless of 

any adverse effect on individual entities, public disclosure will improve the market as a 

whole by improving efficiency and competition. 

79. Finally, while ONEOK and TPA assert that the disclosure requirement could 

violate the confidentiality provisions of pipelines’ existing contracts, most jurisdictional 

contracts include provisions that the contract is subject to all rules adopted by the 

Commission. Moreover, the Commission has previously held that such confidentiality 

provisions violate Commission policy. For example, in Bay Gas Storage Co.,

119 the 

Commission required a section 311 pipeline to remove from its Statement of Operating 

Conditions a provision that the terms of any storage or transportation service agreement 

must be kept confidential with certain exceptions, holding that the provision was 

 119 110 FERC ¶ 61,154 at P 17 (2005). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 51 - 

“contrary to the Commission’s favoring public disclosure of the provisions of service 

contracts under NGPA section 311.” If any Hinshaw or section 311 pipeline believes that 

it is subject to a binding contractual obligation to keep confidential any information 

required to be disclosed by this rule, it must file that contract with the Commission so 

that it can be modified to remove any such provision. 

G. Data Format and Technical Protocols

1. NOPR and Information Notice

80. The NOPR proposed that Commission Staff develop a mandatory, standardized 

electronic format for the Form No. 549D reports. The goals are to facilitate data 

submission, to provide the public timely and easy access to the information, and to avoid 

the costs of requiring intrastate pipelines to maintain a NAESB-compliant website. 

81. The Commission introduced its proposed format in the Information Notice. The 

Information Notice provided a table showing proposed Form No. 549D data elements to 

be collected each quarter from each respondent. It also included an example of data 

entries reported by a sample pipeline for one shipper, a Proposed Form No. 549D Data 

Dictionary and Reporting Units, and draft Instructions for Reporting Data. The 

Commission also asked for comments on the technological issue of whether the proposed 

standardized format should be developed using XML or an ASP.NET web-based form. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 52 - 

2. Comments

82. The discussion of information technology in the NOPR and Information Notice 

garnered widespread concern from pipelines. The chief concern of pipelines is that they 

may have to engage in extensive training or outsourcing in order to understand and 

comply with the Commission’s directive.120 AGA reports that “one company has 

estimated the cost of developing an in-house solution for XML Schema reporting to be 

approximately $30,000.”121 Jefferson reported its own estimate of $130,000 “to develop 

a quarterly report similar to the proposed Form No. 549D in the XML Schema 

format.”122 Jefferson also stated, however, that it could not support ASP.NET unless the 

Commission could first guarantee that the format would not “require[] a filer to manually

enter data,” or otherwise make the data submission and correction process laborious.123 

 

83. In order to reduce this compliance burden, AGA along with Duke recommend that 

the Commission support not only the XML and ASP.NET approaches, but also “a simple 

spreadsheet with the data in tabular form that the intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines could 

complete and file with the Commission using the eFiling portal.”124 TPA urges the 

120 E.g., Jefferson at 9-11. 

121 AGA at 7. 

122 Jefferson at 14. 

123 Jefferson at 10. 

124 AGA at 14; see also Duke at 2-3, 7-9. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 53 - 

 

Commission to not adopt a form at all, but rather allow pipelines to continue to file 

reports similar in format and content to what they file now.125 In the alternative, TPA 

recommends making both XML and ASP.NET available.126

84. AGA also “recommends that the Commission develop a Frequently Asked 

Questions webpage or other web-based Query System to assist intrastate and Hinshaw 

pipelines in complying with the new standardized electronic information filing 

requirements.”127 AGA, TPA, and Jefferson have several questions in this vein regarding 

specific elements and definitions from the Information Notice.128

85. Cities, along with Constellation, praise the Commission’s decision “to shoulder 

the burden of website maintenance and standards compliance.”129 Yates, while generally 

supporting the Commission’s proposal, argues that it would not be unduly burdensome to 

require pipelines to maintain their own websites on which they regularly publish 

transactional data.130

125 TPA at 16. 

126 TPA at 20; see also ONEOK at 5. 

127 AGA at 3; see also AGA at 15. 

128 AGA at Appendix A; TPA at 20-25; Jefferson at 11-13. 

129 Cities at 4; see also Constellation at 4. 

130 Yates at 7. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 54 - 

3. Commission Determination

86. The Commission will use XML to collect and process the data required by the 

Form No. 549D report and present it in a timely manner on its website. The Commission 

recognizes that some respondents may prefer not to use XML. Other respondents have 

experience with the format or for efficiency purposes would use XML. Therefore, the 

Commission will allow respondents at the beginning of each quarter to select the 

method131 of filing most appropriate to their circumstances as described below: 

a. Fillable-PDF Form No. 549D

For respondents who prefer not to use XML, the Commission will 

develop an electronic form in a PDF format that can be downloaded 

from the FERC website and saved to a user’s computer desktop. 

The form can be viewed and updated using Adobe Acrobat Reader 

version 9 or higher. The fillable-PDF form will look like a standard 

document, so that a clerk or any other employee(s) will be able 

collaborate on filling it out, saving it, and submitting the fillablePDF electronically to the Commission.132 The data will be verified 

 131 Respondents must choose only one methodology in a given quarter to file their 

quarterly report. They do not have to notify Commission staff of their selection. 

132 See Appendix for a paper copy of the Form No. 549D and an example of a 

completed copy. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 55 - 

and validated before it will be officially accepted by the 

Commission. Each respondent’s filing would be publicly available 

in eLibrary within 1 day after filing. The public would also be able 

to download the entire Form No. 549D database for the quarter from 

the FERC website a few days after the filing deadline. Respondents 

would be able to correct any errors in their initial filings by filing a 

revised fillable PDF Form No. 549D with the Commission.133

b. File an XML file that validates against an XML Schema for Form 

No. 549D

This method of filing is for those respondents who have some 

experience with XML, or have a relatively large number of shippers 

and contracts to report on each quarter. The Commission would 

develop an XML Schema for Form No. 549D and make it available 

for download on the FERC website. Respondents would have to test 

and successfully validate their XML filing against the XML Schema 

for Form No. 549D prior to submitting it electronically to the 

Commission. Once the XML file is submitted, the Commission will 

examine it to ensure that it is formatted properly and validates 

 133 The Form No. 549D database accessible on the FERC website would only 

show the latest filing of each Respondent. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 56 - 

against FERC’s XML Schema for Form No. 549D before it is 

officially accepted by the Commission. Each respondent’s filing 

would be publicly available in eLibrary within 1 day after filing. 

The public would also be able to download the entire Form 

No. 549D database for the quarter from the FERC website a few 

days after the filing deadline. Respondents would be able to correct 

any errors in their initial filings by resubmitting another XML file. 

87. An updated data dictionary, paper copy of the Fillable PDF Form No. 549D, an 

example of the filled out Form No. 549D, and Instructions are attached as an appendix to 

this order. At a date closer to the deadline for filing the first Form No. 549D, the 

Commission will issue a notice for a Workshop in which Commission Staff will explain 

the overall filing process, including the fillable-PDF Form No. 549D, data dictionary, 

XML Schema and will answer any technical questions. Commission Staff are also 

directed to set up a form549D email box (form549d@ferc.gov) where respondents can 

send questions. Commission staff will also provide online filing guidance and technical 

advice to respondents who request it, in line with the Commission’s current guidelines for 

contact between Staff and regulated entities. 

88. Finally, to the extent possible, the General Instructions for Form No. 549D 

developed by the Commission Staff will conform with the instructions for eTariff filing, 

so that pipelines shall use the same names to refer to the same objects and concepts in 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 57 - 

both their Statements of Operating Conditions and their quarterly reports. In this manner, 

the Commission hopes to address all of the above-noted concerns with regard to 

information technology for the Form No. 549D. 

VI. Periodic Rate Review

A. Current Policy

89. Section 311 of the NGPA provides that the rates of intrastate pipelines performing 

transportation service under the NGPA shall be fair and equitable. Section 284.123 of the 

Commission’s regulations implements this requirement for section 311 pipelines, and 

§ 284.224(e)(i) provides that provides that Hinshaw pipelines performing interstate 

service will be subject to the same rate requirements that apply to intrastate pipelines 

under § 284.123. As a general matter, the Commission’s review of the rates of both 

section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines is more light-handed than its review of the rates of 

interstate pipelines. For example, when intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines file a request 

for a rate change, the Commission does not impose the five-month suspension typically 

imposed on interstate pipeline rate increases, and it uses advisory, non-evidentiary 

proceedings to resolve the issues, rather than setting the case for an evidentiary hearing 

before an Administrative Law Judge, as it does for interstate pipeline rate cases.134

 134 Gulf Terra Texas Pipeline, L.P., 109 FERC ¶ 61,350, at P 9 (2004) (Gulf 

Terra). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 58 - 

90. However, as part of this overall, more light-handed regulation of intrastate and 

Hinshaw pipelines, the Commission has established a policy of reviewing the rates of 

both types of pipelines every three years in order to ensure that the rates affecting 

interstate services remain fair and equitable.135 The Commission has stated that the 

triennial rate review of section 311 intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines enables the 

Commission to determine whether their rates have become unfair and unreasonable 

because the cost of service data upon which they are based have become stale. 

91. The primary difference in the Commission’s regulation of section 311 and 

Hinshaw pipelines is the procedural vehicle through which the three-year rate review of 

those pipelines’ rates is performed. This difference arises from the difference in the 

statutes under which we regulate the two types of pipelines. For the reasons discussed in 

full in Green Canyon Pipe Line Co.,

136 the Commission has broad conditioning authority 

under NGPA section 311(c), which it has consistently exercised to require intrastate 

pipelines to file new petitions for rate approval every three years. However, the United 

States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that the 

Commission cannot require interstate pipelines subject to its NGA jurisdiction to make 

 135 See, e.g., id. at P 10 (citing Arkansas Western Gas Company, 56 FERC 

¶ 61,407 (1991), reh’g denied, 58 FERC ¶ 61099 (1992)). 

136 98 FERC ¶ 61,041 at 61,122-3 (2002). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 59 - 

new rate filings under NGA section 4.137 Consistent with that finding, the Commission 

in Consumers Energy Co.138 only required Hinshaw pipelines performing interstate 

service under a § 284.224 certificate to submit a triennial informational filing in th

specified in § 154.313 of the Commission’s regulations for minor rate changes. 

e form 

92. While the triennial rate review requirement is not part of the Commission’s 

regulations, the Commission has consistently imposed that requirement as a condition of 

its approval of each rate filing by a section 311 or Hinshaw pipeline. The Commission 

has done this, whether the pipeline has chosen to elect a state-based rate pursuant to 

§ 284.123(b)(1) or has proposed a rate for a Commission-approved rate pursuant to 

§ 284.123(b)(2).139 

B. Comments

93. While the NOPR did not directly raise the issue of whether the Commission 

should modify its triennial rate review policy, Duke points out in its comments that Order 

No. 636 removed the requirement that interstate pipelines file new rate cases every three 

years. It contends that, in order to treat section 311 pipelines and Hinshaw pipelines 

 137 Public Service Commission of New York v. FERC, 866 F.2d 487 (D.C. Cir. 

1989). 

138 94 FERC ¶ 61,287 (2001). See also Gulf Terra at P 12. 

139 See Centana Intrastate Pipeline Co., 75 FERC ¶ 61,253 (1996) (Order on 

Rehearing) (imposing triennial rate review on a § 284.123(b)(1) filing); Green Canyon 

Pipe Line Company, L.P., 98 FERC ¶ 61,041 (2002) (Order on Rehearing) (imposing 

triennial rate review on a § 284.123(b)(2) filing). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 60 - 

similarly: “the Commission should either reimpose a periodic rate filing requirement on 

interstate pipelines or eliminate the triennial filing requirement currently imposed on 

intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines.”140

94. Other commenters argue that the triennial rate review requirement renders any 

additional information collection partly or wholly unnecessary. TPA predicts that the 

proposed reports “would not likely yield significant transparency benefits,” because 

Section 311 pipelines already must file Statements of Operating Conditions with 

maximum rates and submit cost of service filings to the Commission and to state 

officials.141 Enogex argues that the triennial rate review offers the Commission and other 

interested parties sufficient opportunity to review the rates and contracts of Section 311 

pipelines. Enogex further argues that most interstate pipelines are not subject to rate 

reviews that are as detailed or frequent, and that Section 311 pipelines would be unduly 

burdened if further reporting were required.142

C. Commission Determination

95. As noted above, the Commission generally requires triennial rate reviews of 

section 311 intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines to ensure that the Commission has current 

information and rates have not become stale. Since these pipelines are not subject to the 

 140 Duke at 7. 

141 TPA at 3. 

142 Enogex at 10-11. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 61 - 

same reporting requirements, nor the same level of rate review, as interstate pipelines, the 

Commission can not eliminate periodic rate review without abrogating its duty to 

continually assure fair and equitable rates. 

96. However, the Commission is sensitive to concerns that the improved reporting 

requirements could prove too burdensome, when considered in aggregation with other 

burdens such as triennial rate review. In recent years, the Commission has found it only 

occasionally necessary to impose rate reductions during these periodic reviews. It is our 

expectation that the improved reporting requirements will instill further market 

discipline, thus helping to continue this favorable trend. It thus appears that requiring all 

section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to make filings for a review of their rates every three 

years imposes an unnecessary burden on both the pipelines and the Commission, as 

compared to the public benefits obtained by such rate review. Accordingly, the 

Commission has decided to modify its triennial rate review policy in order to decrease the 

frequency of review from three to five years. Therefore, the Commission intends in 

future orders approving rates filed by section 311 and Hinshaw pipelines to include a 

condition requiring a review of those rates five years from the date the approved rates 

took effect. Any pipelines subject to a requirement to file a triennial rate review after the 

issuance of this Final Rule may file a request for an extension of time consistent with the 

revised policy announced here. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 62 - 

VII. Effective Date of the Final Rule and Compliance Deadlines

A. Comments

97. Several commenters expressed concern over the speed with which the 

Commission would adopt and implement the proposed reporting requirements. Three 

suggestions raised by Jefferson and others were to hold conferences or otherwise delay 

the issuance of the Final Rule, delay the effective date of the Final Rule, and establish a 

safe harbor period. 

98. First, Jefferson and others seek to delay the issuance of the Final Rule. Jefferson 

argues that the proposed format “[r]equires additional guidance in the form of industry 

conferences and workshops prior to the Commission’s issuance of a Final Rule to avoid 

conflicts in interpretation of each proposed data element, develop a consensus regarding 

proposed technical reporting formats, and to give intrastate and Hinshaw pipelines an 

opportunity to present information that would more accurately represent the burden of 

reporting.”143 TPA, while also requesting a conference, urges the Commission to 

postpone any activity in this docket until after the Commission has completed the 

implementation and appeals process for the rulemaking in Order No. 720, which also 

 143 Jefferson at 7. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 63 - 

concerns intrastate pipeline reporting, and assesses the impact of that rule before 

considering any further regulations.144

99. Second, Jefferson requests “an implementation period of at least 18 months from 

the issuance of a final rule ... regardless of the technical format ultimately selected.”145 

AGA also requests a delayed effective date, without specifying a length.146

100. Third, Jefferson requests a one year safe-harbor period, during which pipelines 

will not be penalized for inadvertent reporting errors.147

B. Commission Determination

101. The Final Rule will become effective on April 1, 2011. Pursuant to the 

regulations, the Form No. 549D quarterly report for the period January 1, 2011 through 

March 31, 2011 must be eFiled on or before May 1, 2011. Based on the comments from 

all shippers, we believe that this allows a sufficient period before implementation of the 

revised reporting requirement to allow reporting pipelines to familiarize themselves with 

the new reporting format and update their internal processes, if necessary. As noted 

above, Commission Staff plans to hold a technical workshop on a date to be announced in 

the near future for the purpose of assisting reporting pipelines in this transition. 

 144 TPA at 6, 15; see also Atmos at 7; ONEOK at 3. 

145 Jefferson at 8. 

146 AGA at 16. 

147 Jefferson at 8. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 64 - 

102. We will not institute a safe-harbor period. However, as stated above in this order, 

because this is a new information collection, the Commission will focus any enforcement 

efforts on instances of intentional submission of false, incomplete, or misleading 

information to the Commission, of failure to report in the first instance, or of failure to 

exercise due diligence in compiling and reporting data.148

VIII. Information Collection Statement

A. Original Statement

103. In the NOPR, in accordance with the requirements of the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB), the Commission estimated that on an annual basis the burden to 

comply with the rule as proposed would be as follows: 

Data 

Collection 

Number of 

Respondents 

Number of 

Responses 

Hours per 

Response 

Total 

Hours 

Form No. 

549D 

125 4 3.5 1,750 

Using an hourly rate of $150 to estimate the costs for filing and other administrative 

processes, the Commission estimated the total cost for all respondents to be $262,500. 

B. Comments

104. Many pipelines strongly disagreed with the Commission’s burden estimate. Most 

prominently, commenters urge the Commission to consider the initial implementation 

 148 See, e.g., Order No. 704 at P 114. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 65 - 

 

burden. Atmos states that it spent five months on the first annual report required by 

Order No. 704.149 AGA estimates that the development of an XML Schema alone would 

cost $30,000 per respondent, for an initial total burden of $3.75 million.150 Enogex 

estimates the “major information systems upgrades to allow Enogex to track, report, and 

maintain the level of detailed data necessary ... [at] $3 to $4 million.”151

105. Commenters also disagreed with the estimated ongoing annual burden. AGA 

estimated annual reporting would take over 12 hours per respondent to complete, which 

for 125 respondents would be an annual burden of $900,000.152 TPA also believes that 

annual burdens will be significantly higher, especially if the Commission chooses a 

format that requires manual data entry.153 “[D]ue to the large number of small-volume, 

interruptible 311 transactions ... the burden of additional reporting might outweigh the 

benefits of participating,” TPA warns.154 Jefferson estimates 24 hours per quarter per 

respondent, with thousands of dollars in fees to third party information technology 

149 Atmos at 3. 

150 AGA at 7. 

151 Enogex at 7. 

152 AGA at 7. 

153 TPA at 15. 

154 TPA at 24. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 66 - 

vendors.155 In addition, Jefferson and others provide separate estimates of the cost of 

using industry common codes for shippers and receipt and delivery points, as detailed 

above in this order.156

C. Revised Statement

106. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations require that OMB 

approve certain reporting, record keeping, and public disclosure requirements (collections 

of information) imposed by an agency.157 The Commission has submitted notification of 

these proposed information collection requirements to OMB for its review and approval 

under section 3507(d) of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995.158

107. The requirement for intrastate pipelines to post additional information regarding 

their transactions would impose an initial burden on pipelines as they organize their 

corporate data to be compatible with the data elements selected by the Commission for 

Form No. 549D. Certain pipelines have asserted in comments that the costs could 

include the reconfiguring of information collection systems. However, given that this 

information is used in their business, the Commission still believes that the burden that 

would be imposed by this proposed requirement is largely for the collection of this 

 155 Jefferson at 14. 

156 E.g., Jefferson at 9. 

157 5 CFR §1320.11. 

158 44 U.S.C. 3507(d). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 67 - 

 

information.159 As stated above in this Final Rule, intrastate pipelines can choose to 

submit their quarterly Form No. 549D using a Commission-provided Fillable PDF 

form.160 In this instance, intrastate pipelines would not be required to incur costs to learn 

XML or develop an XML Schema. Even if an intrastate pipeline chose to file an XML 

file, it would not incur costs to develop an XML Schema. The Schema would be 

developed by the Commission and provided to pipelines in order to validate their 

submission before eFiling it to the Commission. While the Commission erred in not 

including this burden in its original estimate, we nevertheless find that the burden 

estimates provided by commenters are far too high. These estimates were based on 

assumptions that the Commission would require a far more intensive volume of reports – 

transaction-by-transaction reports instead of contract-by-contract reports – and that the 

Commission would require the more technologically challenging XML data format 

without developing a “simple spreadsheet” form to guide respondents. 

108. OMB regulations require OMB to approve certain information collection 

requirements imposed by agency rule. The Commission submitted notification of this 

159 See 5 CFR § 1320.3(b)(2) (“The time, effort, and financial resources necessary 

to comply with a collection of information that would be incurred by persons in the 

normal course of their activities (e.g., in compiling and maintaining business records) 

will be excluded from the “burden” if the agency demonstrates that the reporting, 

recordkeeping, or disclosure activities needed to comply are usual and customary.”). 

160 Respondents would have to download the free version of Acrobat Reader 

version 9 to use the fillable PDF. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 68 - 

rule to OMB. The Commission has developed a cost estimate of the initial 

implementation burden and revised the estimate of the ongoing annual burden 

concomitant with the decision allow multiple versions of the report. The analysis began 

with an examination of a representative sample of over one-third of the companies 

currently filing a Form No. 537, the semi-annual storage report, or Form No. 549, the 

annual transportation report. Studying the level and type of services performed for their 

shippers made it possible to split the industry between those that would logically file 

using the PDF form because of the relatively small number of shippers and services, and 

those that would incur the addition up-front effort associated with developing tools for 

filing the report using the Commission’s XML schema. This analysis estimates that the 

70 percent of Respondents that average less than five shippers transacting in a given 

quarter would file using the PDF form. The other 30 percent would incur addition 

development costs associated with the XML-based report to offset the larger on-going 

burden cost associated with reporting more shippers, services, and contracts. Cost 

estimates were developed for the initial burden and the on-going burden for each of the 

permissible file methods, using prevailing Houston labor costs and the most efficient 

hourly split of manpower by legal, accounting, regulatory and IT departments. The initial 

burden was split between effort involved in the initial review and planning procedures to 

ensure compliance with the rulemaking and the effort required to develop and implement 

the new procedures. The PDF startup effort would require an average 68 person-hours or 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 69 - 

$4,354 per Respondent. The XML startup effort would require an additional 128 personhours, primarily associated with the increased IT development and testing requirements, 

for an estimated initial burden of $11,287 per Respondent. The start-up burden estimates 

for complying with this Final Rule are as follows: 

Initial Public Reporting Burden:

Data Collection 

Filing Method 

Number of 

Respondents 

Average Start-Up 

Burden per 

Respondent 

Total 

Industry 

Hours 

Total 

Industry 

Costs 

Using PDF Form 87 $4,354 5,916 $378,798 

Using XML 

Schema 38 $11,287 7,448 $428,906 

Total 125 13,364 $807,704 

To estimate ongoing burden, the Commission analyzed two sets of costs: the per-report 

cost for the effort by the legal accounting, IT and regulatory departments related to 

changes in the mix of shippers and services, and the per-contract costs related to the 

effort populate the report with the information associated with each shipper by service 

type and by contract. For the first set of costs, this analysis estimates the PDF form to 

require 11 person-hours at an estimated cost of $596 per report, and the XML Schema 10 

man-hours at an estimated cost of $556 per report. For the per-contract set of costs, this 

analysis estimates the PDF form to require $663 per report and the XML Schema $543 

per report, for the average Respondent. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 70 - 

Ongoing Public Reporting Burden: 

Data Collection 

Filing Method 

Number of 

Respondents 

Average Annual 

Ongoing Burden per 

Respondent 

Total 

Industry 

Hours per 

Year 

Total 

Industry 

Costs per 

Year 

Using PDF 

Form 87 $2,650 4,294 $230,550 

Using XML 

Schema 38 $2,171 1,520 $ 82,498 

Total 125 5,814 $313,048 

Title: Form No. 549D 

Action: Proposed Information Posting and Information Filing 

OMB Control No: xxxx-xxxx 

Respondents: Business or other for profit. 

Frequency of Responses: Quarterly posting requirements. 

Necessity of the Information: The quarterly filing of additional information by intrastate 

pipelines is necessary to provide information regarding the price and availability of 

natural gas transportation services to market participants, state commissions, the 

Commission, and the public. The filing would contribute to market transparency by 

empowering market participants to determine the extent to which particular transactions 

are comparable to one another; and it would allow the monitoring of potentially 

manipulative or unduly discriminatory activity. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 71 - 

Interested persons may obtain information on the reporting requirements by contacting 

the following: 

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

888 First Street, NE 

Washington, DC 20426 

[Attention: Data Clearance, Phone: (202)502-8415, fax: (202)273-0873] 

e-mail: DataClearance@ferc.gov

or by contacting: 

Office of Management and Budget 

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Washington, DC 20503 

[Attention: Desk Officer for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, phone: 

(202)395-7345, fax: (202)395-7285]. 

IX. Environmental Analysis

109. The Commission is required to prepare an Environmental Assessment or an 

Environmental Impact Statement for any action that may have a significant adverse effect 

on the human environment.161 The Commission has categorically excluded certain 

actions from these requirements as not having a significant effect on the human 

 161 Order No. 486, Regulations Implementing the National Environmental Policy 

Act of 1969, 52 FR 47897 (Dec. 17, 1987), FERC Stats. & Regs., Regulations Preambles 

1986-1990 ¶ 30,783 (1987). 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 72 - 

environment.162 The actions taken here fall within categorical exclusions in the 

Commission’s regulations for rules that are corrective, clarifying or procedural, for 

information gathering, analysis, and dissemination, and for sales, exchange, and 

transportation of natural gas that requires no construction of facilities.163 Therefore an 

environmental review is unnecessary and has not been prepared in this rulemaking. 

X. Regulatory Flexibility Act

110. The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980 (RFA)164 generally requires a description 

and analysis of final rules that will have significant economic impact on a substantial 

number of small entities. The Commission is not required to make such analysis if 

proposed regulations would not have such an effect. 

111. Most of the natural gas companies regulated by the Commission do not fall within 

the RFA’s definition of a small entity.165 Approximately 125 natural gas companies are 

potential respondents subject to the requirements adopted by this rule. For the year 2008 

 162 18 CFR § 380.4. 

163 See 18 CFR §§ 380.4(a)(2)(ii), 380.4(a)(5) and 380.4(a)(27). 

164 5 U.S.C. 601-612. 

165 See 5 U.S.C. 601(3), citing section 3 of the Small Business Act, 15 U.S.C. 623. 

Section 3 of the SBA defines a “small business concern” as a business which is 

independently owned and operated and which is not dominant in its field of operation. 

The Small Business Size Standards component of the North American Industry 

Classification System defines a small natural gas pipeline company as one that transports 

natural gas and whose annual receipts (total income plus cost of goods sold) did not 

exceed $7 million for the previous year. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 73 - 

(the most recent year for which information is available), 4 companies had annual 

revenues of less than $7 million. This represents 3.2 percent of the total universe of 

potential respondents or only a very few entities that may have a significant burden 

imposed on them. In addition, by providing entities with an option of how they file the 

information, the Commission has provided alternatives, thereby lessening the economic 

impact for smaller entities while still accomplishing the regulatory objective of increasing 

market transparency. In view of these considerations, the Commission certifies that this 

Final Rule’s amendments to the regulations will not have a significant impact on a 

substantial number of small entities. 

XI. Document Availability

112. In addition to publishing the full text of this document, except for the Appendix, in 

the Federal Register, the Commission provides all interested persons an opportunity to 

view and/or print the contents of this document, including the Appendix, via the Internet 

through FERC's Home Page (http://www.ferc.gov) and in FERC's Public Reference 

Room during normal business hours (8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Eastern time) at 888 First 

Street, NE, Room 2A, Washington, DC 20426. 

113. From FERC's Home Page on the Internet, this information is available on 

eLibrary. The full text of this document, including the Appendix, is available on 

eLibrary in PDF and Microsoft Word format for viewing, printing, and/or downloading. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 74 - 

To access this document in eLibrary, type the docket number excluding the last three 

digits of this document in the docket number field. 

114. User assistance is available for eLibrary and the FERC’s website during normal 

business hours from FERC Online Support at 202-502-6652 (toll free at 1-866-208-3676) 

or email at ferconlinesupport@ferc.gov, or the Public Reference Room at (202) 502-

8371, TTY (202) 502-8659. E-mail the Public Reference Room at 

public.referenceroom@ferc.gov. 

XII. Effective Date and Congressional Notification

115. These regulations are effective April 1, 2011. The quarterly report for transactions 

occurring during the period January 1, 2011 through March 31, 2011 must be filed on or 

before May 1, 2011. The Commission has determined that this rule is not a “major rule” 

as defined in section 351 of the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act of 

1996. 

List of subjects in 18 CFR Part 284 

Continental shelf, Natural gas, Reporting and recordkeeping requirements. 

By the Commission. 

( S E A L ) 

Nathaniel J. Davis, Sr., 

Deputy Secretary. 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 75 - 

 In consideration of the foregoing, the Commission amends Part 284, Chapter I, 

Title 18, Code of Federal Regulations, as follows. 

PART 284 – CERTAIN SALES AND TRANSPORTATION OF NATURAL GAS 

UNDER THE NATURAL GAS POLICY ACT OF 1978 AND RELATED 

AUTHORITIES

1. The authority citation for Part 284 continues to read as follows: 

Authority: 15 U.S.C. 717-717w, 3301-3432; 42 U.S.C. 7101-7352; 43 U.S.C. 1331-1356 

2. In § 284.126, paragraph (b) is revised to read as follows: 

§ 284.126 Reporting Requirements

* * * * * 

(b) Form No. 549D, Quarterly Transportation and Storage Report of Intrastate 

Natural Gas and Hinshaw Pipelines. 

(1) Each intrastate pipeline must use Form No. 549D to file a quarterly report with 

the Commission and the appropriate state regulatory agency that contains, for 

each transportation and storage service provided during the preceding calendar 

quarter under § 284.122, the following information on each transaction, 

aggregated by contract: 

i. The full legal name, and identification number, of the shipper 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 76 - 

receiving the service, including whether there is an affiliate 

relationship between the pipeline and the shipper; 

ii. The type of service performed (i.e., firm or interruptible 

transportation, storage, or other service); 

iii. The rate charged under each contract, specifying the rate 

schedule/name of service and docket where the rates were approved. 

The report should separately state each rate component set forth in 

the contract (i.e. reservation, usage, and any other charges); 

iv. The primary receipt and delivery points covered by the contract, 

identified by the list of points that the pipeline has published with 

the Commission, which shall include the industry common code for 

each point where one has already been established; 

v. The quantity of natural gas the shipper is entitled to transport, store, 

or deliver under each contract; 

vi. The duration of the contract, specifying the beginning and ending 

month and year of the current agreement; 

vii. Total volumes transported, stored, injected or withdrawn for the 

shipper; and 
Docket No. RM09-2-000 - 77 - 

viii. Total revenues received for the shipper. The report should 

separately state revenues received under each rate component; 

(2) The quarterly Form No. 549D report for the period January 1 through March 31 

must be filed on or before May 1. The quarterly report for the period April 1 

through June 30 must be filed on or before August 1. The quarterly report for 

the period July 1 through September 30 must be filed on or before November 1. 

The quarterly report for the period October 1 through December 31 must be 

filed on or before February 1. 

(3) Each Form No. 549D report must be filed as prescribed in § 385.2011 of this 

chapter as indicated in the General Instructions and Data Dictionary set out in 

the quarterly reporting form. Each report must be prepared and filed in 

conformance with the Commission’s software or XML Schema, eTariff filing 

structure, and reporting guidance, so as to be posted and available for 

downloading from the FERC Web site (http://www.ferc.gov). One copy of the 

report must be retained by the respondent in its files. 

(4) Intrastate pipelines filing Form No. 549D are no longer required to file Form 

No. 549 – Intrastate Pipeline Annual Transportation Report after their 

March 31, 2011 filing. 

* * * * *