Opinion ID: 184581
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Southwest's Claimed Historic Rights to Firm Capacity

Text: 22 In a rather muddled manner, Southwest describes one of the issues presented for review: 23 Where the law requires natural gas pipelines to provide unbundled firm transportation service that is equal in quality to the bundled firm gas service formerly provided, may a pipeline offer a local distribution company capacity rights at delivery points that are inferior to that LDC's capacity rights prior to unbundling, and inferior to the capacity rights of subsequent purchasers of firm capacity? 24 Petitioner's brief at 1. What Southwest really seems to be seeking is what it calls first-in-time delivery point capacity allocation. In other words, Southwest contends that because it had delivery rights before Expansion Shippers were added to the customer mix on El Paso's line, it should have a priority right to capacity over the Expansion Shippers. FERC dismissed that claim, stating: 25 The parties expressed concerns regarding historical primary delivery points and flexible/alternate delivery points. This issue seems more properly to be one of the allocation of delivery point capacity which [330 U.S.App.D.C. 243] must, therefore, be addressed by El Paso in El Paso's restructuring proceedings.... 26 Southwest Gas Corp. v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 61 F.E.R.C. p 61,368 at 62,464 (1992). In the restructuring proceeding, the Commission granted some of the relief that Southwest sought by reserving to Southwest and the Expansion Shippers priority rights at fully booked delivery points, but did not grant Southwest's claim to vested or historical rights as against the Expansion Shippers. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 64 F.E.R.C. p 61,265 at 62,827 (1993). The Commission contends that this ruling, addressing the priority rights as against all parties except the Expansion Shippers, disposed of all allocation claims left open by its original order, and that all other issues raised were not properly before it, having been disposed of in prior orders. Southwest contends that the Commission erred by failing to address its other arguments relating to delivery point capacity. We agree with the Commission. 27 Insofar as Southwest's rather confused and confusing argument questions the Commission's interpretation of the breadth of its own prior order, it is well established that an agency's interpretation of the intended effect of its own orders is controlling unless clearly erroneous. Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. v. FERC, 922 F.2d 865, 871 (D.C.Cir.1991) (citation omitted). Southwest has done nothing to convince us that the Commission's interpretation of its own prior order is clearly erroneous. Insofar as the petition rehashes the issue previously litigated--that is, the Commission's permitting El Paso to book, and in Southwest's view to overbook, capacity at the two Topock delivery points utilized by Southwest--we already ruled in Southwest Gas Corp. that Southwest has not demonstrated that the Commission's decision injured it in fact and thus made it an aggrieved party for purposes of standing before this court. 40 F.3d at 467-68. The present petition adds nothing new, nor does it change our view. Finally, insofar as it is necessary to address the substantive question of historic or vested rights claimed by Southwest, the Commission not only reasonably but correctly points out that Southwest had no such rights, because the flexibility available under El Paso's proposal did not exist before Order No. 636 restructuring. 64 F.E.R.C. at 62,827. The Commission further reasonably concluded that anything lost by Southwest was at least counterbalanced by other more expansive rights that Southwest gained under restructuring. Id. at 62,828. 28