By Jason Womack and Chris Knight

November 24, 2025 - The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is terminating a rulemaking to codify "safe harbor" language for companies that report natural gas and electricity transactions to price reporting agencies but said it remains committed to that policy.

FERC has long maintained a presumption that companies submitting data to Argus and other price index developers do so in good faith and that it would not pursue enforcement actions against market participants that make "inadvertent reporting errors".

In 2020, FERC proposed a rulemaking to codify the safe harbor policy to eliminate any concerns it might depart from that approach.

FERC on 20 November voted unanimously to end the safe harbor rulemaking, noting that the number of companies providing data to index developers has increased since the rule was first proposed.

"For over two decades the commission has neither investigated nor imposed penalties on any company for inadvertent reporting errors," FERC said. "We remain committed to the safe harbor policy, as it promotes robust, voluntary reporting to index developers."

In 2022, FERC adopted a revised policy statement that allowed data providers to report monthly transactions to index developers without having to submit daily trades. At the same time, FERC deferred action on the safe harbor rulemaking, but it reiterated that the safe harbor policy "remains in effect".

In addition, some developers have included fixed-price transactions from the Intercontinental Exchange and have demonstrated that they adhere to the commission's standards through a reapproval process for indexes to be referenced in jurisdictional tariffs.

Argus, S&P Global Platts and Natural Gas Intelligence are among the price reporting agencies that publish natural gas indexes.