John P. Gregg | McCarter & English, LLP

Natural gas industry participants retain John for his transactional experience structuring deals and negotiating contract terms and for his advice on regulatory issues affecting the energy industry.

John Gregg represents many local gas utilities before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and federal appellate courts. He assists local governmental entities with issues arising from their ownership of all types of energy infrastructure, including assisting them in forming joint action agencies. He serves as General Counsel to the American Public Gas Association (APGA) and was awarded its Harry M. Cooke Personal Service Award in 2022 for his contributions to advancing APGA’s goals and the natural gas industry.

When FERC restructured pipeline services in Order No. 636, John fought for and obtained changes to benefit his clients. He testified before Congress concerning the order’s consumer impact and argued the appeal of Order No. 636 before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit for the APGA. He has steered clients through the regulatory implementation of Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. He has advocated before the Department of Energy concerning appliance efficiency standards. He advises clients on the impact of clean energy and climate legislation being implemented in states and in Congress.

John’s transactional work includes North American Energy Standards Board and International Swaps and Derivatives Association agreements. He helps clients negotiate contracts for electric and natural gas transmission service, coordination arrangements and power and natural gas supply, including municipal bond-financed prepaid natural gas agreements. He has assisted clients with creating energy joint-action agencies in South Carolina and New Mexico.

Earlier in his career, John served as Assistant General Counsel for the Public Service Commission of the District of Columbia, which regulates the retail rates of utilities serving the nation’s capital.

John writes and lectures regularly on energy matters. He is a past member of the Board of Directors of the Charitable Foundation of the Energy Bar Association. He has served as Clerk of Session of the National Presbyterian Church since 2011.

Served as Gas Counsel to the Public Energy Authority of Kentucky, a Kentucky joint action agency that the firm helped create, in a structured transaction that issued more than $862 million in Gas Revenue Bonds on December 26, 2023, to refund Series 2018A funds, and finance a pre-paid long-term contract with the Morgan Stanley Energy Services to supply natural gas to ten gas utilities in seven states owned by local governmental entities.

Obtained a court win from the D.C. Circuit on appeal for our client, APGA, which challenged a 2020 appliance efficiency rule promulgated by the Department of Energy’s (DOE) concerning commercial packaged boilers commonly used to heat commercial and institutional buildings such as schools, hotels, office and apartment buildings, and hospitals. The court vacated the rule because the agency failed to adhere to proper notice and comment under the Administrative Procedure Act and because it failed to explain adequately the economic justification for the rule.

Serve as Special Gas Counsel to the Public Energy Authority of Kentucky (PEAK) since its inception in 1998. Negotiate municipal bond-financed, prepaid long-term natural gas supply purchases. Between 2018 and 2019, PEAK issued more than $2.2 billion in municipal bonds to prepay such purchase agreements. The client sells such gas to its members and more than two dozen municipalities at below market prices; their ratepayers will save millions in gas cost over the next 5-6 years

Negotiated the acquisition by the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority (NTUA) of approximately 268 miles of an interstate natural gas pipeline—and related compressor stations—to serve several Navajo Nation communities that would have lost service from the prior pipeline owner abandoning the line. On federal approval, the line will be transferred to NTUA with the prior owner providing funds for NTUA to integrate the line into its distribution system. We also helped NTUA obtain federal authorization to acquire and operate the interstate pipeline facilities.

Represented two Southwestern cities and a tribal authority in a Natural Gas Act interstate natural gas pipeline rate proceeding at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), winning a new discounted rate for the clients after litigation with their natural gas provider.

Obtained for the APGA a favorable ruling from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) interpreting the use of non-condensing technology on residential natural gas furnaces as a performance-related feature that cannot be eliminated by adopting an energy conservation standard under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The DOE correspondingly withdrew a proposed efficiency standard that would have required many residential consumers to replace non-condensing technology natural gas furnaces with costlier higher efficiency condensing technology gas furnaces or electric heat pumps.

Represented Patriots Energy regarding a publicly financed, 42-mile high-pressure intrastate natural gas pipeline. We also serve as general counsel to Patriots Energy.