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HARRY HUGHES, Governor 2289
WHEREAS, Undue increases in natural gas prices will lead to
uneconomic fuel switching by industries thereby needlessly
increasing dependence upon imported oil; and
WHEREAS, Anti-competitive increases in natural gas prices
will result in less investment capital being available to the
nation's industries and further exacerbate decline in employment;
and
WHEREAS, Gas production will not be improved by immediate,
full deregulation; and
WHEREAS, Institutional barriers to rational market ordering,
most of which are federal regulatory policies, need to be
removed; and
WHEREAS, The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has
remedial and direct jurisdiction to remedy most of the
institutional defects and to infuse the regulatory process with
market disciplines; and
WHEREAS, Current federal regulatory policy with respect to
the contracts problem, pipeline purchasing practices and the
fraud or abuse standard, pipeline rate design, purchased gas
adjustment clauses, prepayments, off-system sales, and affiliate
production, if unchecked, will act in combination to permit
producers to price-discriminate in an anti-competitive manner;
and
WHEREAS, The General Assembly of Maryland recognizes the
importance of competitive behavior in the natural gas marketplace
and recognizes that needless, potentially excessive
anti-competitive price increases are on the horizon, and further
is resolved to protect the citizens of Maryland from such abusive
prices for natural gas; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That the
Congress of the United States of America is requested:
(1) To investigate the purchasing practices of the
natural gas pipeline transmission companies;
(2) To review and consider the public interest
quality of any further deregulation versus the reimposition of
wellhead price controls for natural gas;
(3) To investigate and review the desirability and
feasibility of legislatively remedying the "contracts problem";
(4) To review and, if necessary, more specifically
define fraud or abuse as intended in Section 601(c) of the
Natural Gas Policy Act;
(5) To consider imposing "common carrier" status upon
pipeline transmission companies; and
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