FERC's marketing affiliate conference

Becky and I attended FERC's gas marketing affiliate conference last week.
Non-affiliated competitors continue to build straw men and describe abuses
with no real evidence to back them up (the funny money argument and capacity
hoarding are two examples. The funny money argument assumes marketing
affiliates will bid above market rates for capacity because they excess
payment is going to the corporate bottom line. Hoarding capacity to drive up
price may be an issue, but it is not a marketing affiliate issue, as anyone
can do it). FERC staff did not seem terribly sympathetic to the points made,
but at least one FERC staffer seemed to believe that one solution would be to
require the pipelines to offer capacity in smaller blocks to let smaller
entities put together bids. FERC also indicated they were in fact auditing
compliance, but in a non-public way.

There were some concerns voiced which I agree with and there is an
opportunity to file additional comments on Apr. 30. I would like to put the
following in these comments:

Evidence of affiliate abuse/preference is just not there. The best folks can
do is make up stuff.
We welcome FERC monitoring if that is needed to bring confidence to the
marketplace that abuse is not occurring. But the issue is really whether we
do have a crisis of confidence or merely a bunch of disgruntled competitors
who are just seeking to neutralize the affiliated competitors).
The FERC rules and the information reported (with a caveat) under those rules
are adequate for detection and enforcement and deterrence.
That said, the definition of marketing affiliate should be expanded to
include affiliated electric generators, who are siting plants along affiliate
pipelines.
The pipeline 637 reporting and internet systems should allow users to
download and manipulate transportation related data, which is not currently
the case.

We also need to address a deal on Northern where ENA took capacity at a
discount, albeit after other parties had an opportunity to match our bid.
This was a deal brought up in the conference.

Let me know how this sounds. Thanks.