Opinion ID: 588799
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Exemption of Gathering Facilities

Text: 49 The petitioner details as follows the economic discrimination that may result from the Commission's decision not to subject gathering facilities to its open-access Orders: At times when demand for gas is high, a producer/gatherer could give transportation preference to its own volumes over those of other shippers. Also, gatherers can charge rates to shippers on their systems which overrecover the costs of providing the service, thereby subsidizing the gatherers' own transportation. 50 The Commission replies simply that it was reasonable to deal with access problems on the OCS by building upon its NGA regulations, which cover interstate pipelines but not gathering facilities, because as it said in Order No. 509-A, interstate pipelines ... are clearly within the Commission's jurisdiction under the NGA. Moreover, the Commission already has an established open-access program that can, with few modifications, be applied to such pipelines. 54 Fed.Reg. at 8303. Finally, the Commission acknowledged that the open access mandate of the OCSLA applies to all pipeline operations on the OCS, and [stated that it] will consider appropriate measures for remedying discriminatory access to other OCS facilities on a case by case basis. Id. 51 We agree with the FERC to the extent of saying that the distinction it has drawn is not facially unreasonable. We express no view today upon the merits of the petitioner's argument that the distinction unreasonably creates an incentive to discriminate because we do not think that question is now ripe for judicial resolution. When the present record was closed no such discrimination had as yet been documented. Whether producer/gatherers have the ability as well as the incentive to discriminate, and whether that incentive is strong enough to induce them actually to discriminate (which may not be without its costs) remain to be seen. 52 Perhaps most important, the Commission promised to address case-by-case such complaints of discrimination as shippers might later raise. The agency is entitled to make reasonable decisions about when and in what type of proceeding it will deal with an actual problem. See Mobil Oil Exploration v. United Distrib. Companies, 498 U.S. 211, 111 S.Ct. 615, 627, 112 L.Ed.2d 636 (1991) (An agency enjoys broad discretion in determining how best to handle related yet discrete issues in terms of procedures, and priorities, ... [as is the case] where a different proceeding would generate more appropriate information and where the agency was addressing the question) (citing Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. National Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U.S. 519, 98 S.Ct. 1197, 55 L.Ed.2d 460 (1978), and Heckler v. Chaney, 470 U.S. 821, 831-32, 105 S.Ct. 1649, 1655-56, 84 L.Ed.2d 714 (1985)). Surely it has as much or more discretion to decide whether to take up a merely potential problem, one that may or may not materialize soon enough. The Commission's wait-and-see approach may be particularly appropriate in this situation, where there is a real question whether it has jurisdiction over gathering facilities under § 7(b) of the NGA, 15 U.S.C. § 717f(b). See 54 Fed.Reg. at 8303 (The most rational starting point for promulgating regulations to implement section 5 of the OCSLA is with interstate pipelines that are clearly within the Commission's jurisdiction under the NGA); Brief of Intervenors at 5 (challenging FERC jurisdiction over rates charged by gathering facilities on the OCS). 53 In a similar vein, the petitioner complains that the FERC has created an incentive for pipeline companies to get the agency to reclassify their transmission facilities as exempt gathering facilities; indeed the petitioner [297 U.S.App.D.C. 329] represents that such shenanigans are already afoot. For most of the reasons stated in connection with the petitioner's incentive-to-discriminate argument, its incentive-to-finagle argument is also unripe. Insofar as the petitioner claims that the potential problem has become an actual problem, it relies upon anecdotal and extra-record reports, which we must disregard. Thus, we have no basis in the present record for overturning the FERC's decision not to apply its open access regulations to gathering facilities.