The head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that oversees the interstate transmission of natural gas, electricity and oil on Thursday would not say whether it will launch a formal investigation into soaring natural gas prices in California but did say the agency has assigned staff to examine whether any market manipulation took place.
"Let me be clear, FERC takes serious the gas price spikes that happened in California and in the West," acting chairman Willie L. Phillips said during a briefing with energy reporters at the agency's headquarters in Washington D.C.
"Our office of enforcement, the division on analytics and surveillance, they are undertaking enhanced surveillance right now regarding market participants (to) determine whether they contributed to or benefited from the high gas price spikes in California," Phillips said. "If our office of enforcement discovers any potential violations of our anti-manipulation rule, we will — and I'm going to add this — aggressively pursue violations of that rule."
