Suppliers Seek Declaratory Order from Pennsylvania PUC Regarding Customer Lists

Dominion Retail, Interstate Gas Supply, and Shipley Energy have petitioned the Pennsylvania PUC for an order declaring that natural gas distribution companies (NGDCs) continue to be responsible under the Commission's Regulations and Orders to provide customer lists to natural gas suppliers (NGSs) in their service territories upon request, and that such customer lists, "must include the complete information required by the Commission's orders, unless otherwise restricted by the customer."

The petition is prompted by the practice of Columbia Gas with respect to customer account numbers, as well as National Fuel Gas Distribution Corporation's response to the suppliers in 2010 that that National Fuel Gas Distribution no longer believed that it was responsible for providing customer lists, in any form.

The suppliers said that it is Columbia Gas' practice to withhold a single digit of the customer number as a "check digit" when providing customer lists to suppliers. According to the suppliers, it is Columbia's position that suppliers must obtain this extra digit from the customer to ensure that the customer has actually spoken with the supplier, and that the customer must provide the supplier with this digit as a means of preventing slamming.

The suppliers further said that despite not providing the full account number on the lists that it provides to the suppliers, it had been Columbia's prior practice that when the suppliers submitted a customer enrollment without the check digit, Columbia would provide the complete customer number back to the supplier so that the supplier could re-enroll the customer, albeit after several days of unnecessary delay. Also, because of Columbia's enrollment process, which includes black-out dates, if the enrollment issues are not corrected quickly, the enrollment may fall into the black-out period, which could result in even more delay.

"However, at a recent meeting between Columbia and various NGSs, including IGS, Shipley, and DES [Dominion Energy Solutions], DES raised the issue of the incomplete customer account numbers provided to the Suppliers by Columbia on the Customer List, in an effort to seek Columbia's agreement to provide the entire account number. Rather than resulting in a positive change, Columbia has instead changed its process for the worse, and now refuses to provide the full customer number - ever," the suppliers said.

The suppliers said that in a May 11, 2000 final order (M-00991249F0009), the PUC required national gas distribution companies to update customer lists on a regular and ongoing basis and to provide those lists to suppliers at no charge. The Commission in that order also said that it does not view withholding account numbers as an effective means of curtailing instances of slamming.

A tentative order in the docket had contemplated that customer lists would only be updated through 2004. One Commissioner instead proposed that the lists be updated indefinitely. The final order stated, "[a]s to whether these lists should be updated indefinitely, we are not inclined to address this proposal at this time. We will consider that issue again after assessing how this market develops."

The suppliers said that, "[w]hile the Commission's Final Order at Docket No. M-00991249F0009 (Slip Op. at 10) does leave open the question of how long NGDCs will be required to continue to provide these lists, the Commission has not since modified or rescinded this Order and therefore the requirement remains in full effect."

"Many years prior to Columbia's refusal to provide a complete account number as a means of preventing slamming, the Commission squarely addressed and rejected the notion that providing customer account numbers to NGSs would lead to slamming, and instead required NGDCs to release to suppliers (subject to the customers' ability to prevent disclosure of the information): 'the name, billing address, service address, rate class, rate sub-class (if available), account number and load data for all customers.' (Final Order, slip op. at 8). There simply is no basis in law or in fact to support the notion that providing licensed NGSs with the complete customer list information has or will lead to slamming and there is no sound reason, other than the obvious effort to complicate customer switching efforts, for any NGDC to act otherwise," the suppliers said.

"The positions of these two NGDCs, Columbia and NFGD, are surprising in light of the Commission's recent orders in the electricity industry that require electric distribution companies to update the lists quarterly, and to provide considerably more information to competitive suppliers, without fees," the suppliers said.

The suppliers sought a declaratory order, "[d]eclaring that the Final Order at Docket M-00991249F009 continues in full force today and continues to require that NGDCs regularly update their customer lists at no charge to NGSs, and that they provide those complete customer lists to NGSs at no charge."