Opinion ID: 726048
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Hypothetical PGA Recovery

Text: 46 The Customers argue that the Commission unreasonably disregarded evidence demonstrating that under the only cost-recovery method available to the Pipeline Petitioners in 1985 (i.e., the PGA) the Customers would have paid in some cases nothing and in others far less than the cost that the Commission effectively imposed upon them when it denied them interest. The Customers do not dispute, however, that their presentations to the Commission were based upon two assumptions that the Commission declined to adopt. Panhandle, 69 FERC p 61,048 at 61,190-91, reh'g denied 70 FERC p 61,167; Trunkline, 69 FERC p 61,047 at 61,184-85, reh'g denied 70 FERC p 61,166; Panhandle, reh'g denied 69 FERC p 61,065. 47 First, the Customers assumed that even if the Commission had not endorsed direct-billing as the appropriate method of cost recovery, the pipelines would not have turned to the PGA any earlier than the dates on which they filed for authorization to bill the Customers directly. The Commission reasonably rejected this assumption. The Customers offered no reason to believe that, if the Commission had rejected rather than approved direct billing proposals in January and June of 1985, see 30 FERC p 61,138; Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., 31 FERC p 61,308 (1985), the Pipelines would not have turned immediately to their PGAs as the only lawful means of recovering Order No. 94 costs. Second, the Commission rejected the Customers' assumption that the Pipelines would have amortized their past Order No. 94 costs over a single year. The Customers offer no reason why the Pipeline Petitioners would not have proposed and the Commission would not have authorized a longer amortization period in order to keep the [320 U.S.App.D.C. 384] Pipelines from pricing themselves out of the market. 48 As the Commission made clear, without the benefit of these assumptions the Customers cannot show that they would have paid little or nothing, as they variously claim, had the Pipelines attempted to recover their Order No. 94 costs through the PGA rather than by direct billing. Therefore, their charge that the Commission departed without explanation from its own general rule--that a customer entitled to a refund should also be awarded interest in order to make it whole--is beside the point. If the Commission could not reasonably determine what would make each party whole, and had no reason to impose a greater share of the burden of uncertainty upon one party than the other, then ordering a refund of principal without interest at a time when the principal and interest are of roughly equal value is a reasonable compromise. See Consumer Federation of America v. FPC, 515 F.2d 347, 358 (D.C.Cir.1975) (While full refund under an invalid order is a sound basic rule, it may be offset, at least in part, by the lack of a mechanism to restore the full status quo ante). 49