Pennzoil Company v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

SAM D. JOHNSON, Circuit Judge:

The single question here presented is whether the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may refer to private contract pricing provisions to assist it in identification of natural gas whose production entails such extraordinary risks or costs that it would not be undertaken absent the availability of a special incentive price. We hold both that it has the authority to do so, and that it has in this instance used that authority in a manner neither arbitrary nor capricious, but reasonably related to attainment of the controlling, congressionallydefined,…