Resolution - H2870 and H2871 — File 199426

WHEREAS: According to a study by Harvard University, the amount of gas leaking from pipelines and storage facilities is significantly higher than estimated; and WHEREAS: This leaking gas, called unaccounted-for gas, represents the difference between the total gas available from all sources and the total gas accounted for as sales, net interchange, and company use and includes leakage or loss by other means, discrepancies in measuring or monitoring inaccuracies, variations of temperatures or pressures and other variants; and WHEREAS: Often, the cost of this unaccounted-for gas is passed downstream from providers to consumers; and WHEREAS: A new bill, number H.2870, seeks to protect all gas and electricity customers, whether businesses, manufacturers, homeowners, municipalities, and other government gas users, from paying for unaccounted-for gas by prohibiting providers from including the cost of unaccounted-for gas, as well as the costs of reducing or remedying loss, in the rate base; WHEREAS: This bill, while protecting customers, will also provide economic incentive to providers to mitigate loss, pushing development of improved technology and practices as well as help reduce heat-trapping gasses released during transportation, distribution and storage which have a considerable effect on global warming; and WHEREAS: A new bill H.2871 seeks to require gas companies, after a significant project involving the repair or paving of a public way or where underground utility work is performed in a municipality, to survey project areas for the presence of gas leaks and repair such leaks, now therefore be it RESOLVED: That the Somerville Board of Aldermen does hereby go on record supporting H.2870, An Act relative to protecting consumers of gas and electricity from paying for leaked and unaccounted for gas; and H. 2871 An Act relative to gas leak repairs during road projects, AND BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED: That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this resolution to the elected Somerville delegation in the House and Senate as well as House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Stanley Rosenberg on behalf of the entire Board of Aldermen. {B1883262; 1}