Henry Waxman: “Reclaiming my time, I will answer the gentleman's question. The comments were made by my colleagues from Texas that we…”

“Reclaiming my time, I will answer the gentleman's question. The comments were made by my colleagues from Texas that we are downsizing the ability of the pipeline in California to carry natural gas. That is not true. They said we do not have full capacity to handle intrastate all of the gas that is coming to the border. I have a chart right here that shows how California did not use its full capacity throughout the year 2000. That demonstrates that we have additional capacity. We are trying to build up for more natural gas in California. What this amendment does is put us in the lap of FERC. When it comes to natural gas regulation, FERC's record is pretty bad. When natural gas prices in California skyrocketed earlier this year, FERC regulators were nowhere to be seen. These prices were caused by market manipulation by a subsidiary of El Paso Natural Gas which hoarded unused pipeline capacity. California regulators filed a complaint about El Paso with FERC back in April 2000. It is now August 2001, and FERC still has not resolved the El Paso problem. Anyone who thinks that FERC regulators can do an adequate job regulating California's pipelines just has not been paying attention over the past year.”