81 Pa. Commw. 148 | Pa. Commw. Ct. | 1984
Opinion by
In these consolidated cases, the National Fuel Gras Distribution Corporation (NFGr) seeks review of orders of the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (Commission)
In the opinion filed in support of our order just described we explored in detail the circumstances which led to NFG contract for a supply of SNGr- and which later led the Commission to condemn the
On July 31, 1981,® NFG filed with the Commission its calculations applicable to the GCR-4 period to commence on September 1, 1981. Specifically, NFG sought to establish by the filing a gas cost rate of $.2984 per MCF
On August 28, 1981, the four members of the Commission as it was then constituted, entertained a motion during the course of a duly convened public meeting attended by representatives of NFG the NFG’s GCB-4, as submitted, be rejected on account of its inclusion of the $.50 per MCF penalty related to SNG not to be purchased from Ashland.
Commissioner Cawley: [T]he potential effects of denying incurred gas costs are catastrophic, I suspect, for all or most of these companies, and I would like you to check the law and make sure that they will go into effect as a result of a tie vote. Otherwise, we’ve got to do something about it quickly.
*153 Mr. Malatesta: Commissioner, we addressed this question yesterday in anticipation of the possibility [of a tie vote and] my belief [is] that the kind of system of review anticipated or created by Section 1307 of the [Public Utility] Code, that is, establishing automatic adjustment, means that, basically, the Commission has to act affirmatively to stop automatic adjustment; that, once a system is in place, that was put in place in May of 1978 for this GCR, it takes affirmative votes by the Commission, by a majority of the Commissioners, to put a stop to that process. Otherwise, the filing just goes into effect.
Commissioner Cawley: [I]t is now your opinion that the NFG GCR [-4] will automatically go into effect?
Commission Chairman Shanaman: Although it is questionable.
Mr. Malatesta: It’s not certain. It is an untested opinion, obviously. This matter has never been tested in the courts. The language of the statute is not unambiguous, but my best analysis is that it would go into effect automatically.
On September 1, 1981, NFG began to charge its customers rates calculated with reference to the contested GCR-4 filing. Three weeks later the Consumer Advocate filed with the Commission a complaint docketed to C-812654 in which the Consumer Advocate asked that NFG be ordered “to cease and desist collecting rates pursuant to its currently filed GCR No. 4... ” and averring that:
a) NFG is without legal authority to collect rates pursuant to GCR No. 4 because no valid*154 order of the Commission has been issued permitting the tariff rider to become effective.
66 Pa. C. S. §1307(a) and (b).
[and]
B) NFG’s GCR No. 4 is unjust and unreasonable in violation of Section 1301 of the Public Utility Code, 66 Pa. C. S. §1301, because it is designed to collect “take or pay” charges of $.50 per MCF pursuant to a contract with Ashland SNG Corporation [sic].
NFG filed a responsive answer and the matter was assigned to Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Herbert S. Cohen. An evidentiary hearing was conducted on January 7, 1982, at which time the effect of the Commission’s order entered one week-earlier, on December 30, 1981, was considered. In the December 30 order, docketed to M-FACG 8004, as we have indicated, the Commission required NFG to refund some $13 million to its customers representing the cost of Ashland SNG previously purchased by the utility. The Commission additionally ordered as follows :
5. That the prior collection of the $.50 per MCF take or pay penalty through the operation of GCR-2, GCR-3, and GCR-4 is hereby approved, subject to audit pursuant to the provisions of 66 Pa. C. S. §1307(d) and further National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation shall be permitted to include the costs of the $.50 per MCF penalty in all future GCR’s, during the life of the contract... .6
The Consumer Advocate requested an opportunity to review in detail the Commission’s December 30, 1981 order. This request was granted by the ALJ and written argument was submitted in which the Consumer Advocate pressed a modified objection to the effect that, although the utility’s GCR-4 was now unobjectionable, NFGr should be required to refund to its customers the difference between the GCB revenues collected between the implementation of GCR-4 on September 1, 1981 and its approval on December 30, 1981 and the revenues that would have been collected during the same period had GCR-3 remained in force.
In support of its position the Consumer Advocate contended that Section 1307 of the Code requires prior approval by the Commission of GCB filings; and that
Specifically, the ALJ held that neither Section 1307 of the Code nor the Commission’s 1978 Order creating the GCR procedure require prior Commission approval of GCR filings; that the Commission is possessed of the power to approve retroactively a utility’s GCR filing and that the Commission had, in its December 30, 1981 Order, done so with respect to NFG’s GCR-4; and that the December 30 Order rendered moot any objections to that GCR-4.
Exceptions were filed and by order adopted August 13, 1982 and entered October 4, 1982, the Commission reversed the decision of the ALJ and concluded that NFG’s implementation of GCR-4 prior to December 30, 1981 was unlawful. The text of the Commission’s opinion in support of its Order, including the text of the pertinent statutory provisions follows :
During the pendency of the proceeding at R-79090956, on July 30, 1981, NFG filed its GCR No. 4 and related Tariff Supplement No. 3 to become effective September 1, 1981. Included within this filing was the $.50 perMCF penalty for SNG not taken under the Ashland contract.
At the public meeting held August 28, 1981, the four Commissioners then sitting considered, inter alia, the question of whether NFG should be allowed to implement its GCR 4. The decision resulted in a 2-2 tie. Effective September 1, 1981, NFG began charging rate payers the higher fuel costs contained in GCR 4. By*157 Order entered December 30, 1981, a majority of the Commission approved NFG’s GCR 4.
The OCA argues that NFG possessed no authority to charge its customers the CCR 4 rate until such a rate was expressly approved, and that as a result, NFC has collected $8,-203,762[7 ] more under CCR 4 than it would have been entitled to if CCR 3 had been in effect from September 1 to December 31, 1981.
In his Initial Decision, the Administrative Law Judge concludes that our December 30, 1981 Order properly permitted NFC to include the $.50 per MCF penalty in its CCR 4 on and after December 30,1981. He further finds that Section 1307(a) of the Public Utility Code provides the mechanism whereby an automatic adjustment clause may be collected and that Section 1307(b) permits a utility to implement those rates without express approval of the tariffs. We disagree.
Central to this controversy is Section 1307 of the Public Utility Code, 66 Pa. C.S. §1307, which provides in part as follows:
1307. Sliding scale of rates; adjustments (a) General rule. — Any public utility, except a common carrier, may establish a sliding scale of rates or such other method for the automatic adjustment of the rates of the public utility as shall provide a just and reasonable return on the fair value of the property used and useful in the public service, to be determined upon*158 such equitable or reasonable basis as shall provide such fair return. A tariff showing the scale of rates under such arrangement shall first be filed with the commission, and such tariff, and each rate set out therein, approved by it. The commission may revoke its approval at any time and fix other rates for any such public utility if, after notice and hearing, the commission finds the existing rates unjust or unreasonable.
(b) Mandatory system for automatic adjustment. — The commission, by regulation or order, upon reasonable notice and after hearing, may prescribe for any class of public utilities, except a common carrier, a mandatory system for the automatic adjustment of their rates, by means of a sliding scale of rates or other method, on the same basis as provided in subsection (a), to become effective when and in the manner prescribed in such regulation or order. Every such public utility shall, within such time as shall be prescribed by the commission, file tariffs showing the rates established in accordance with such regulation or order.
While we agree with NFGr that Section 1307(b) requires us to establish a mandatory system for the automatic adjustment of rates and authorizes us to prescribe the form and content of the clause, we cannot agree that Section 1307(a) provides that by approving the form and content of the clause we have delegated, to the utility, the authority to bill customers for charges implementing that rate without our prior approval. In formulating that opinion, we cannot agree with NFGr’s contention that Section 1307(a) and (b) must be read sepa*159 rately but, rather, conclude that the provisions are linked. While subsection (b) requires us to establish the form and content of the automatic adjustment clause, subsection (b) specifically refers to subsection (a) for the method of implementing that charge. By entering our order at Docket M-78050055, we merely established the method by which the automatic adjustment clause was to be calculated and not the individual rate to be charged by a utility. Were we to adopt NFG’s reasoning, questions such as those which arose in NFG’s GCR 4 could not have been considered by us.
Additionally, we cannot agree with NFG’s contention that the word “rate” referred to in Section 1307 was intended to refer to the clause itself. A rate is defined in the Public Utility Code as a “. . . charge ... or other compensation . . . and any rules, regulations, practices, classifications or contracts. ...” 66 Pa. C.S. §102. Thus, we consider the actual charge, or dollar amount to be charged the customer and not the method of calculating that charge to be the rate.
Viewing Section 1307(a), we agree that a utility should initially set forth its calculations necessary to establish a sliding scale of rates that would provide a just and reasonable return. However, we are of the opinion that subsection (a) requires our approval of those individual rates. To allow a utility to implement rates on its own volition would be tantamount to delegating, to the very party we are bound by law to regulate, the authority to establish its own rates. Such a delegation of authority is clearly impermissible.
The OCA suggests that we require NFC to refund the sum of $8,203,762 which was collected by NFC from its customers through implementation of its CCR No. 4 during the period September 1, 1981 to December 31, 1981. We disagree.
When one views the entire process involved in establishing and reviewing a CCR the issue presented by the OCA may be readily resolved. Upon an initial filing of the CCR by a utility, the calculations presented to us are merely estimates of anticipated costs. After approval of those estimates, the utility is authorized to collect those rates until further order of the Commission. Annually, we perform an audit of the experienced costs and compare those costs to the amount collected over the previous twelve months. At this point any refund for over-collection or recoupment for undercollection is authorized. Through this process we insure that a utility is made whole, while protecting ratepayers from any overcharges resulting from any inaccuracy of a utility’s estimates. As the ultimate amount to be collected over a 11-month period is fixed, it would appear that the only benefit or detriment to a ratepayer or utility is what has been characterized as the ‘‘time value of money”. In other words, as the costs to be recovered will be a sum certain, except for the time value of money, it would not*161 make any difference as to when the collection of those funds began.
By concluding that collection of the funds for CCR No. 4 prior to our approval was inappropriate, we must attempt to quantify this time value of money. Accordingly, we direct the Respondent to adjust its CCR No. 5 so that a refund will be made to ratepayers representing the interest accrued on its CCR No. 4 revenues collected to the extent they exceed the amount that would have been collected through its CCR No. 3 from the period September 1, 1981, through December 31, 1981;
Thereafter, by Order adopted and entered December 3, 1982
1. That the proper amount to be refunded by National Fuel Cas Distribution Corporation to its customers pursuant to our order at this docket entered on October 4, 1982 is $3,245,727 as explained in Appendix “A” of this order.
2. That the refund amout of $3,245,727 is not to be submitted as an undercollection for purposes of computing the [subsequent audit] statement [pursuant to Section 1307(e) of the Code] submitted by [NFC].
Appendix “A” referred to in ordering paragraph 1 is reproduced in the margin.
Before commencing the inquiry, we will briefly describe the Gas Cost Rate procedure. As we recently wrote in Note 6 of our opinion in National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation, at 464 A.2d at 552 n.6:
The Gas Cost Rate mechanism for the automatic adjustment of gas cost charges is authorized by Code Section 1307, 66 Pa. C. S. §1307 entitled “Sliding scale of rates; adjustments” and by the Commission’s Order of May 21, 1978, Docket No. M-78050055, reported at 52 Pa. P.U.C. 217-220. Such mechanisms are common and are denominated variously “fuel adjustment clauses,” “purchased gas adjustment clauses, ” “escalator clauses,” and “pass-through procedures.” With differences in the*163 details of operation, each, mechanism allows the regulated gas utility to reflect in customer charges changes in the price paid by the utility for the gas it distributes without the necessity of preparation or approval of a revised tariff. That is, these mechanisms, by means of a formula like the one set forth at 52 Pa. P.U.C. page 219, pass through to customers changes in the utility’s cost of gas. The constitutional validity of a similar automatic adjustment mechanism, the Energy Cost Eate applicable to electric utilities, was recently upheld in Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pa. , A.2d (No. 45 W.D. Appeal Docket 1982 & No. 5 W.D. Appeal Docket 1983, filed May 4, 1983).
The GCE here at issue is a “levelized” adjustment mechanism which means that the cost of gas passed through to the customer remains constant for a specified period — here one year — with an opportunity during subsequent annual periods for the utility to reconcile past over-collections or under-collections by charging increased or decreased rates to the extent that its predictions as to the cost of its purchased gas fell short of or were greater than the utility’s actual experience.
The principles of utility ratemaking otherwise applicable, which principles the GCE procedure was designed to modify, are that no regulated utility may impose customer charges other than those set forth in the company’s tariff on file with the Commission and that every revision of the filed tariff must be the subject of comprehensive prior administrative investigation and decision. In the case of gas distributors
Becognizing the practical impossibility of granting timely rate relief under such a regimen, the legislature and the Commission have for more than a decade permitted some form of automatic purchased gas cost pass-through to customers. The Fuel Adjustment Clause, the operation of which immediately preceded the Gras Cost Bate here at issue, permitted a monthly adjustment of customer charges reflecting changes in .the utility’s cost of the fuel it distributed. As has been indicated, the Commission first promulgated the detailed GrCB mechanism by order in 1978 docketed to M-78050055. Two innovations were embodied in the GrCB mechanism. First, unlike the monthly fluctuations permitted in the context of the Fuel Adjustment Clause, GCB charges were required to be “levelized” for an annual period based on the utility’s projections as to gas supplies and costs during the coming year.
The Issues
(1) Power of the Commission to Require Prior Approval of GCR Filings.
The central issue presented by these appeals concerns the power of the Commission to require prior approval of gas utility GCR filings. This formulation of the issue is in pointed contradistinction to that of the parties which have framed and argued a different question, which we believe is not controlling: that of whether the Commission is required, by Code Section 1307 or otherwise, to adopt a mechanism of prior GCR approval. On the basis of an extended analysis of the language, syntax, and overall structure of .Code Section 1307, NFG contends that there is no statutory requirement of prior GCR approval by the Commission. The Commission and the Consumer Advocate, on the other hand, predicated on a similar analysis, purport to find a requirement of prior approval in the interrelationship of subsections (a) and (b) of Section 1307.
In our view this analysis, although conducted by the parties with great sophistication and skill, misses the mark. We are not here presented with the Commission’s refusal or failure to require prior approval or with a challenge to the statutory propriety of such a refusal or failure. It is conceded that the Commission has, since the inception of the GCR mechanism, consistently required prior approval of each utility’s armnal GCR filing.
The resolution of this issue first requires an examination of Code Section 1307; the primary statutory authority for automatic rate adjustment mechanisms including the GrCR. The statutory scheme contained in Section 1307(a) generally is the provision of a voluntary mechanism available to each utility (other than common carriers) by which the utility may propose to the Commission by means of a tariff filing an automatic adjustment mechanism incorporating any equitable and reasonable means to produce a just and reasonable return on the fair value of the utility’s property used to provide the public service. The voluntary automatic rate adjustment mechanism of subsection (a) and the rates set forth in the tariff must be approved by the Commission before their effectuation and Commission approval may be revoked at any time following notice and hearing if it is determined that the rates produced by the adjustment mechanism are unjust or unreasonable.
Subsection (b) of Code Section 1307 authorizes the Commission, following notice and hearing, to
It seems clear to us, then, that among the powers given to the Commission by Code Section 1307(b) is that of designing detailed procedures by which a utility shall translate a mandatory rate adjustment mechanism prescribed by the Commission into particular customer charges. Moreover, the final sentence of Section 1307(b) expressly authorizes the Commission to control the timing and frequency of utility tariff filings containing explaining, and documenting this translation. For this reason, we must reject NFG’s challenge to the Commission’s requirement of annual submission and approval of customer charges produced by the GCB mechanism.
Our conclusion in this regard is further buttressed by the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public
The Supreme Court affirmed and further elaborated on that facet of the interim administrative review of ECR charges which is the focus of the litigation in this case, as follows:
*170 [I]ndeed, the PUC must expressly approve ECR increases sought by [the electrical utility].
Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pa. , , 459 A.2d 1218,1222 (1983). Hence, in the view of the Supreme Court, the presence of prior Commission approval of proposed ECR increases together with the opportunity of year-end audit, hearing, and refund, established the constitutional regularity of the automatic rate adjustment mechanism. That is, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has recognized that the Commission does require prior approval and that this factor is important to establishing the constitutionality of the GrCR automatic rate adjustment mechanism.
NFC contends in this regard that the concept of automatic rate adjustment and the necessity of prior Commission approval of proposed increases in customer charges are inherently inconsistent. With the necessity of such prior approval, it is argued, there is no sense in which the GCR operates “automatically” and no raison d’etre for Code Section 1307(b).
Consideration by the Commission of proposed GCR customer charge revisions, on the other hand, is preceded only by a brief documentary submission by the utility, analysis and a report by the Commission’s staff as to compliance with the GCR formula and comparison of estimated gas supply costs with the estimates of similar utilities as contained in their annual GCR filings, and a hearing at which public comment is not permitted. See Allegheny Ludlum Steel Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pa. at , 459 A.2d at 1222 (dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Larsen). As in the instant case, decision of the formal propriety of the GCR customer charge revision encompasses a period of only weeks.
Having been offered no persuasive reasons why the Commission cannot require annual approval of NFG’s G.CR filing before the effectuation of the revised charges therein contained, and deferring, as we must, to the Commission’s administrative expertise and to the interpretations of that body of its governing statute and regulatory pronouncements, we reject NFG’s challenge to the requirement of prior approval made applicable to its GCR-4.
(2) Power of the Commission to Require a Refund
NFG also contends that the Commission had no power in this case to order a refund. The matter of the Commission’s power to require refunds is treated in Code Section 1312, 66 Pa. C. S. §1312 as follows:
(a) General rule. — If, in any proceeding involving rates, the commission shall determine that any rate received by a public utility was unjust or unreasonable, or was in violation of any regulation or order of the commission, or was in excess of the applicable rate contained in an existing and effective tariff of such public utility, the commission shall have the power and authority to make an order requiring the public utility to refund the amount of any excess paid by any patron, in consequence of such unlawful collection.
The Commission here determined that having failed to approve NFG’s GCR-4, the existing and
(3) The Amount of the Refund
We have held that the Commission was here authorized by Code Section 1312 to require NFG to refund to its customers the increased GCR-4 revenues during the period prior to the Commission’s approval of those charges on December 30, 1981. However, as the excerpt from its Order entered October 4, 1982 reproduced above indicates, the Commission instead directed NFG to calculate and then to adjust its GCR-5 so as to refund an amount “representing the interest accrued on [NFG’s] GCR No. 4 revenues collected to the extent they exceed the amount that would have been collected through its GCR No. 3 from the period September 1, 1981, through December 31, 1981.” On November 1, 1982, NFG filed two proposed calculations of the required adjustment to its GCR-5.
Two proposals were submitted for alternative use because NFG perceived an ambiguity in the refund Order. We have explored briefly above the relationship between GCR charges and base rates. It will be recalled that GCR charges are annually “ rolled-into ” base rates in order to prevent the GCR billing com-
NFG contends that its right to procedural due process was denied by the Commission’s substantially unexplained rejection of the utility’s refund calculations and equally unexplained and undocumented promulgation of Appendix “A” as the correct application of the refund formula to NFG’s revenue experience. NFG protests that it was not provided the opportunity to present evidence on the issue of the revenues collected under GCR-4 or those that would have been collected under GCR-3 and that the provision of such an opportunity is a constitutional prerequisite to the taking of its property accomplished by the refund order.
We need not decide this constitutional challenge; our difficulty with the procedure here employed is
Order,
And Now, this 26th day of March, 1984, tbe Order of tbe Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission en
The first order was entered October 4, 1982 and the second was entered December 3, 1982; both orders were docketed to C-812654.
MOF is a unit of volumetric measure representing one thousand cubic feet of gas.
This filing was revised on August 14, 1981, for reasons that are not here pertinent.
Reduced in the August 14, 1981 revised filing to $.2327.
The dollars amount of this penalty included in NFG’s GCR-4 filing is $3,216,330.
We discussed tRe apparent effect of this portion, of the Commission’s Order entered December 30, 1981, at National Fuel Gas Distribution Corp. v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Pa. Commonwealth Ct. , , n.10, 464 A.2d 546, 560 n.10. NFG contends that this ordering paragraph must be construed to pre
This figure, representing the Consumer Advocate’s determination of the amount by which NFG’s GCR-4 revenues exceeded those that would have been collected had GOR.-3 remained in force for the four month period prior to December 31, 1981, is noteworthy for the reasons explored at a later point in this opinion. See note 18 and the accompanying text.
Docketed to C-811654.
APPENDIX “A”
Bepresenting an explanation of the calculation, of amount of interest required to be refunded by our October 4,1982 Order at this Docket.
Actual using Amount Interest Interest Month Collections GCB 3 Bate Overcollected Bate Weight Interest
$ $ $ % $
Sept. 81 11,830,700 9,615,337 2,215,363 15 1/2 18/12 515,072
Oct. 16,770,196 13,629,885 3,140,311 16 17/12 711,804
Nov. 20,868,324 16,960,616 3,907,708 16 3/4 16/12 872,721
Dec. 29,233,060 23,759,008 5,474,052 16 3/4 15/12 1,146,130
14,737,434 3.245,130
Subsequent audit by the Commission and the GCB formula’s “B” factor then permits experienced over or under-collections to be reconciled by the utility and its customers.
See discussion contained in the dissenting opinion of Commissioner Cawley docketed to C-812654 and found at page 9 of that opinion:
*166 It has been Commission practice to act on these [COB] recommendations by majority vote, in Public Meeting, by approving the charges that are to go into effect on September 1. As discussed below, this is not required by law or by the May 1978 order, but it has become customary. (Emphasis deleted.)
66 Pa. C. S. §1307(b) (emphasis supplied). As indicated in the excerpt from its decision adopted August 13, 1982, the Commission was persuaded that the phrase “on the same basis as provided in subsection (a)” contained in Code Section 1307(b) and describing the effectuation of mandatory adjustment mechanisms meant that such mechanisms prescribed by the Commission were to be governed by the procedural requirement contained in Section 1307(a) including the requirement that “[a] tariff showing the scale of rates under such arrangement shall first be filed with the Commission, and such tariff, and each rate set therein, approved by it.” We disagree. Section 1307(a) authorizes individual utilities to submit automatic adjustment mechanisms to the Commission for approval. In that context, the requirement of prior Commission approval of the mechanism and the customer charges produced by its operation is easily understood. Section 1307(b), on the other hand, concerns exclusively automatic adjustment mechanisms prescribed by the Commission in the form of an order or regulation applicable to each utility in a specified class and mandating that the adjustment mechanism be used by each such utility. A requirement that the mechanism then be submitted by Hie utility to the Commission for approval makes no sense. A requirement of approval of customer charges as opposed to the adjustment mechanism; which approval is at, issue in the instant case, is understandable, as an abstract matter, in connection with the adjustment mechanism described in both subsections (a) and (b). The prior approval described in subsection (a), however, clearly applies to the mechanism itself as well as the customer charges thereby produced and, therefore, the prior approval of subsection (a) cannot have been incorporated in subsection (b).
The opinion of this Court is reported at 67 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 400, 447 A.2d 675 (1982). The consolidated actions addressed to our appellate jurisdiction were quashed as improper appeals from interlocutory administrative orders. See 67 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. at 408-409, 447 A.2d at 679.
The Energy Cost Rate or ECR is quite similar to the GCR here at issue in permitting an electrical utility to adjust customer charges to reflect estimated fossil fuel and ancillary costs for a future calendar year period. See 67 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. at page 406 n.5, 447 A.2d at 678 n.5.
Commissioner Cawley agreed with this contention. At pages 22-23 of his lucid dissenting opinion docketed to C-812654, he writes:
[T]he Commission, is not required, either by subsections (a) or (b) [of Code Section 1307], to approve annually the [GCR] charges before they go into effect. If such a requirement was meant to exist, the Legislature would not have described these allowed methods of adjusting rates as “automatic.” In fact, there would have been no reason to create Section 1307 at all.
NFG’s revised annual filing was submitted on August 14, 1981; the initial decision of the Commission, with respect to this filing, in which a tie vote was had on a motion to disapprove the revision for its inclusion of $.50 take-or-pay penalty, was made during the course of a hearing conducted two weeks later on August 28, 1981.
Specifically, NFG contended:
Under [the Commission’s refund] order, it is necessary to determine whether there is any difference between “GOK No. 4 revenues collected” and “the amount that would have been collected through its GOB No. 3.” The GCB No. 4 provided for a charge to customers in the amount, of 22.22 cents per Mcf [net of gross receipts tax] while the charge to customers under GCB No. 3 was 28.17 cents per MCF, and, therefore, the “GCB No. 4 revenues collected” were less than “the amount that would have been collected through its GCB No. 3.” Thus, there is no principal amount representing any “excess,” and, therefore, there is no principal amount to which an “interest rate” could be applied. The conclusion is that there is no amount to be refunded.
The Consumer Advocate’s Brief docketed to C-812654 below requested a refund of $8,203,762.00 said to represent the excess of GOR-4 revenues over those of GOR-3 for the four month period prior to December 31, 1981.
NFG also takes issue with ordering paragraph 2 of the Commission’s Order (altered December 3, 1982, which is as follows:
2. That the refund of $3,245,727 is not to be submitted as an undereollecition for purposes of computing the 66 Pa. C. S. §1307(e) statement submitted by National Duel Gas Distribution Corporation.