The City, along with 181 other Mid-Texas cities served by Atmos Energy Corporation, Mid-Tex Division (“Atmos Mid-Tex” or “Company”), is a member of the Atmos Cities Steering Committee (“ACSC”). In 2007, ACSC and Atmos Mid-Tex settled a rate application filed by the Company pursuant to Section 104.301 of the Texas Utilities Code for an interim rate adjustment commonly referred to as a GRIP filing (arising out of the Gas Reliability Infrastructure Program legislation). That settlement created a substitute rate review process, referred to as Rate Review Mechanism (“RRM”), as a substitute for future filings under the GRIP statute.
Since 2007, there have been several modifications to the original RRM Tariff.
Application of the standards set forth in ACSC’s RRM Tariff reduces the Company’s request to $115 million, $83.26 million of which would be applicable to ACSC members. ACSC’s consultants concluded that the system-wide deficiency under the RRM regime should be $95.8 million instead of the claimed $141.3 million.
The impact of the settlement on average residential rates is an increase of $4.60 on a monthly basis, or 6.7 percent. The increase for average commercial usage will be $14.34 or 4.3 percent. Atmos provided bill impact comparisons containing this figures.