Word: wellheads
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Passed last week by the Senate amid intense lobbying, the Harris-Fulbright amendment to the 1938 Natural Gas Law would, in effect, exempt producers of natural gas from government regulation. Under existing legislation, the Federal Power Commission has regulated gas production at the wellhead, with the "primary aim of preventing exploitation of consumers." But supporters of the bill maintain that these regulations curtail the profits of the nation's more than 5000 gas producers--most of them relatively small--discouraging them from seeking vital new reserves. The real violators of the consumer's interest, according to Senator Fulbright of Arkansas...
NATURAL-GAS MEN are squabbling among themselves over federal price controls at the wellhead, thus blocking congressional attempts to kill some of the restrictions. While all segments of the industry-producers, pipelines, and distributors-want fewer price controls, they cannot agree on where they should stop. Unless the gas men get together, Congress, which is already under heavy pressure from consumer groups for controls, will probably do little about a relief bill...
...millions of consumers stretching from Michigan to Massachusetts believe that regulation at the wellhead does tend to keep prices down. Before the hearings are over, the committee expects to listen to many a formidable argument for regulation...
...sets fires from coast to coast, and especially in Washington. This week angry gasmen are fighting no less than seven bitter court battles against the U.S. Government; in Congress three separate bills have been introduced by Southern Democrats to remove federal price controls from gas at the wellhead. This issue-whether or not gas prices should be controlled in the field-has been burning hot ever since 1950, when the famed Kerr bill, which exempted gas producers from controls, was vetoed by President Truman...
...Federal Power Commission itself has never interpreted the Gas Act to include producers; in fact, it has argued against it. But it was quick to obey the court. It froze gas rates at the wellhead as of June 1954, regardless of the provisions already written into existing long-term contracts with the pipelines. The overall effect has been to invalidate virtually every contract throughout the industry-long-term contracts (20 years or more) between producers and pipelines written at the behest of the FPC to bring about stability. To protect themselves against increased costs, producers wrote in "escalator" clauses permitting...