FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION-PERSONNEL ALLOCATION BY ORGANIZATION, ORIGINAL FISCAL 43 1, 203 47 20 20 47 1,403 FEDERAL ENERGY REGULATORY COMMISSION-DISTRIBUTION OF POSITIONS BY FUNCTION, ORIGINAL FISCAL DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY FISCAL YEAR 1979 AUTHORIZATION (Energy Conservation) THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 1978 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY CONSERVATION AND REGULATION, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room 3110, Dirksen Office Building, Hon. J. Bennett Johnston, presiding. Present: Senators Johnston, Bumpers, and Hansen. Also present: Benjamin S. Cooper, professional staff member; James T. Bruce, counsel; and Charles Trabandt, deputy minority counsel. Senator HANSEN. The hearing will come to order. The chairman of this subcommittee, Senator Bennett Johnston, is unavoidably tied up in another conference, and he asked if I would convene this hearing, which I agreed to do. I will read the opening statement that he would have read were he here. STATEMENT OF HON. J. BENNETT JOHNSTON, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA The Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Regulation hearing this morning is being held to provide an opportunity for private witnesses to testify before the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources about their experiences with the regulations of the Department of Energy. The Department has grown far larger and its regulations have become far, far more complex than anyone could have dreamed of when the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act was signed into law in 1973. Every Member of Congress has boxes of mail attesting to the difficulties which thousands of small businessmen have had and are having with these regulations. Gasoline dealers, heating oil marketers, crude oil producers and royalty owners, and State agencies are only a few of those who have struggled to comply with DOE rules and become ensnared in catch-22 procedures. This hearing will examine just a very few of the issues which are raised by these regulations. We will examine the extent to which the DOE is following the procedures set forth in the Department of Energy Organization Act, review the results of DOE regulation of crude (735) oil resellers, and discuss the use of retroactive interpretation by the Department to enforce its rules. In emphasizing these issues, I do not intend to limit anyone's testimony. The purpose of this hearing is to establish a record concerning the problems you and many, many others like you face. That record should be as complete and as comprehensive as is necessary to convey a realistic picture of what you have to deal with. The first testimony will be given by a panel composed of Mr. Joseph Giroir from the firm of Rose, Nash, Williamson, Carrol, Clay & Giroir, of Little Rock, Ark., on behalf of Mid-Continent Systems, Inc., and Mr. Richard C. Morse, chairman of the Committee on DOE Regulations from the American Petroleum Institute, in Washington, D.C. Will Mr. Giroir and Mr. Morse please come forward? For the benefit of the reporter and the chairman you will identify yourselves for the record. Mr. MORSE. I am Richard C. Morse. I'm an attorney for Atlantic Richfield Co., appearing today on behalf of the American Petroleum Institute. Mr. GIROIR. I'm Joe Giroir of the firm Rose, Nash, Williamson, Carrol, Clay & Giroir, appearing today on behalf of Mid-Continent Systems, Inc. Senator HANSEN. Please proceed, gentlemen. May I say, though I am certain I need not because in the statement of the chairman, Mr. Johnston, I pointed out that we want the record to be complete. If you would like, please proceed with the knowledge that your entire statement will appear in the record. And if you want to summarize or add to it in any way, please feel free to do so. STATEMENT OF JOSEPH GIROIR ON BEHALF OF MID-CONTINENT SYSTEMS, INC. Mr. GIROIR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of Mid-Continent Systems, Inc. As you mentioned, small marketing companies are affected greatly by the Department of Energy. My client, Mid-Continent Systems, Inc., is an independent marketer of petroleum, primarily diesel fuel and gasoline. My statement has been furnished, and you mentioned, will be in the record, so I will not burden you this morning with restating that statement. However, I would simply like to point out that it has been my firm's experience in dealing with the FEA, before the Department of Energy was created, and now with the Department of Energy and its Economic Regulatory Administration, that the procedures for review of remedial orders are burdensome, duplicative, and confusing to people out in the country. The experience we have had, as I indicated in my statement, goes back to the old FEA days when there was an emergency, and they understandably created regulations and procedures in haste, and were administered by people who were inexperienced with these regulations, which regulations themselves left voids and were inconsistent in certain ways. |