Opinion ID: 394102
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Compliance with Prior Commission Precedent.

Text: 78 An agency must either conform to its prior norms and decisions or explain the reason for its departure from such precedent. Secretary of Agriculture v. United States, 347 U.S. 645, 74 S.Ct. 826, 98 L.Ed. 1015 (1954); Central Power & Light Co. v. United States, 634 F.2d 137 (5th Cir. 1980), U. S. appeal pending; Columbia Gas Transmission Corp. v. FERC, 628 F.2d 578 (D.C.Cir.1979). Mississippi Valley complains that the Commission has departed from its own precedent without making adequate explanation. Mississippi Valley believes that the Commission has deviated from its holdings in Northern Natural Gas Co., supra, Tennessee Gas Transmission Co., 27 F.P.C. 202 (1962), and Southern Natural Gas Co., supra, the opinion initially establishing Southern's rate zones. 79 In these three prior Commission decisions, Mississippi Valley perceives a rule that transportation costs should be allocated according to distance when load factors and load densities between zones are approximately equal. Mississippi Valley is correct in asserting that these cases have language indicating that distance is of prime importance when load density and load factor between zones are approximately equal. 32 However, all these cases involved pipelines receiving gas at one terminus. 33 In approving Stipulation III, the Commission emphasized that a significant change in Southern's system was the introduction of gas at the eastern terminus of its line. This was a factor not present in the three prior Commission decisions relied upon by Southern. The Commission explained in detail why the introduction of LNG on the eastern terminus made a rate zone allocation unfair, impractical, and unreasonable. Rather than an unreasoned departure from prior precedent, the Commission's decision was a reasoned explanation as to why a new factor made reasonable a new systemwide allocation of transportation costs. 80