On June 22, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“Commission”) issued an Order on Petition for Declaratory Order finding that it has concurrent jurisdiction with bankruptcy courts to review and address the disposition of Commission-jurisdictional natural gas transportation agreements sought to be rejected through bankruptcy. Specifically, the Commission found that, “Where a party to a Commission-jurisdictional agreement under the [Natural Gas Act] seeks to reject the agreement in bankruptcy, that party must obtain approval from both the Commission and the bankruptcy court to modify the filed rate and reject the contract, respectively.” This is the first time the Commission has made such a finding with regard to jurisdictional agreements pursuant to the Natural Gas Act (“NGA”) and it did so in a well-supported, clear and convincing way.
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