MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2026 Regular Session
To: Energy; Public Property
By: Senator(s) Carter
AN ACT TO AMEND SECTION 77-3-3, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO DEFINE "HINSHAW NATURAL GAS PIPELINE SYSTEM" AND INCLUDE IT IN THE DEFINITION OF "PUBLIC UTILITY"; TO AMEND SECTION 77-3-5, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO GIVE THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION JURISDICTION OVER HINSHAW NATURAL GAS PIPELINE SYSTEMS; TO AMEND SECTION 77-3-11, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, TO PROVIDE FOR CERTIFICATION AND APPROVAL OF HINSHAW NATURAL GAS PIPELINE SYSTEMS; TO STIPULATE INSTANCES WHEN HINSHAW NATURAL GAS PIPELINE SYSTEMS MUST SEEK APPROVAL FROM THE COMMISSION; TO PROVIDE FOR THE CREATION OF JURISDICTIONAL CONTRACTS BETWEEN HINSHAW NATURAL GAS PIPELINE SYSTEMS AND THIRD PARTIES; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. Section 77-3-3, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
77-3-3. As used in this chapter:
(a) The term "corporation" includes a private or public corporation, a municipality, an association, a joint-stock association or a business trust.
(b) The term "person" includes a natural person, a partnership of two (2) or more persons having a joint or common interest, a cooperative, nonprofit, limited dividend or mutual association, a corporation, or any other legal entity.
(c) The term "municipality" includes any incorporated city, town or village.
(d) The term "public utility" includes persons and corporations, or their lessees, trustees and receivers now or hereafter owning or operating in this state equipment or facilities for:
(i) The generation, manufacture, transmission, distribution, provision, or furnishing of electricity to or for the public, whether an individual person or an entity or a collection of persons or entities, for compensation;
(ii) 1. The transmission, sale, sale for resale, or distribution of natural, artificial, or mixed natural and artificial gas to the public for compensation by means of transportation, transmission, or distribution facilities and equipment located within this state; however, the term shall not include the production and gathering of natural gas, the sale of natural gas in or within the vicinity of the field where produced, or the distribution or sale of liquefied petroleum gas or the sale to the ultimate consumer of natural gas for use as a motor vehicle fuel;
2. This subparagraph (ii) shall include all Hinshaw natural gas pipeline systems for the purposes of regulation of rules, services and facilities by the commission. "Hinshaw natural gas pipeline system" means a pipeline that is physically located within the State of Mississippi and engaged in interstate commerce that provides natural gas for consumption within the State of Mississippi, and through the regulatory jurisdiction exercised by the State of Mississippi is exempt from the Natural Gas Act of 1938 ("NGA") by reason of Section 1(c) of the NGA.
(iii) The transmission, conveyance or reception of any message over wire, of writing, signs, signals, pictures and sounds of all kinds by or for the public, where such service is offered to the public for compensation, and the furnishing, or the furnishing and maintenance, of equipment or facilities to the public, for compensation, for use as a private communications system or part thereof; however, no person or corporation not otherwise a public utility within the meaning of this chapter shall be deemed such solely because of engaging in this state in the furnishing, for private use as last aforementioned, and moreover, nothing in this chapter shall be construed to apply to television stations, radio stations, community television antenna services, video services, Voice over Internet Protocol services ("VoIP"), any wireless services, including commercial mobile services, Internet Protocol ("IP") - enabled services or broadband services; and
(iv) The transmission, distribution, sale or resale of water to the public for compensation, or the collection, transmission, treatment or disposal of sewage, or otherwise operating a sewage disposal service, to or for the public for compensation.
The term "public utility" shall not include any person not otherwise a public utility, who provides or furnishes the services or commodity described in this paragraph only to himself, his employees or tenants as an incident of such employee service or tenancy, if such services are not sold or resold to such tenants or employees on a metered or consumption basis other than the submetering authorized under Section 77-3-97.
The term "public utility" shall not include any person not otherwise a public utility, who purchases electricity on a metered retail basis from the electric public utility that holds a certificate of public convenience and necessity for the area in which the person is located, and provides or furnishes a portion of that electricity, but not electricity from any other source, to the public for compensation directly and exclusively to charge battery-powered electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Any such person described in this paragraph is an end-use customer, whether or not such person receives compensation for battery or vehicle charging.
A public utility's business other than of the character defined in subparagraphs (i) through (iv) of this paragraph is not subject to the provisions of this chapter.
(e) The term "rate" means and includes every compensation, charge, fare, toll, customer deposit, rental and classification, or the formula or method by which such may be determined, or any of them, demanded, observed, charged or collected by any public utility for any service, product or commodity described in this section, offered by it to the public, and any rules, regulations, practices or contracts relating to any such compensation, charge, fare, toll, rental or classification; however, the term "rate" shall not include charges for electrical current furnished, delivered or sold by one (1) public utility to another for resale.
(f) The word "commission" shall refer to the Public Service Commission of the State of Mississippi, as now existing, unless otherwise indicated.
(g) The term "affiliated interest" or "affiliate" includes:
(i) Any person or corporation owning or holding, directly or indirectly, twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the voting securities of a public utility;
(ii) Any person or corporation in any chain of successive ownership of twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the voting securities of a public utility;
(iii) Any corporation of which fifteen percent (15%) or more of the voting securities is owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by a public utility;
(iv) Any corporation of which twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the voting securities is owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by any person or corporation that owns or controls, directly or indirectly, twenty-five percent (25%) or more of the voting securities of any public utility or by any person or corporation in any chain of successive ownership of twenty-five percent (25%) of such securities;
(v) Any person who is an officer or director of a public utility or of any corporation in any chain of successive ownership of fifteen percent (15%) or more of voting securities of a public utility; or
(vi) Any person or corporation that the commission, after notice and hearing, determines actually exercises any substantial influence or control over the policies and actions of a public utility, or over which a public utility exercises such control, or that is under a common control with a public utility, such control being the possession, directly or indirectly, of the power to direct or cause the discretion of the management and policies of another, whether such power is established through ownership of voting securities or by any other direct or indirect means.
However, the term "affiliated interest" or "affiliate" shall not include a joint agency organized pursuant to Section 77-5-701 et seq., nor a member municipality thereof.
(h) The term "facilities" includes all the plant and equipment of a public utility, used or useful in furnishing public utility service, including all real and personal property without limitation, and any and all means and instrumentalities in any manner owned, operated, leased, licensed, used, controlled, furnished or supplied for, by or in connection with its public utility business.
(i) The term "cost of service" includes operating expenses, taxes, depreciation, net revenue and operating revenue requirement at a claimed rate of return from public utility operations.
(j) The term "lead-lag study" includes an analysis to determine the amount of capital which investors in a public utility, the rates of which are subject to regulation under the provisions of this chapter, must provide to meet the day-to-day operating costs of the public utility prior to the time such costs are recovered from customers, and the measurement of (i) the lag in collecting from the customer the cost of providing service, and (ii) the lag in paying the cost of providing service by the public utility.
(k) The term "broadband services" means any service that consists of or includes a high-speed access capability to transmit at a rate that is not less than two hundred (200) kilobits per second either in the upstream or downstream direction and either:
(i) Is used to provide access to the Internet, or
(ii) Provides computer processing, information storage, information content or protocol conversion, including any service applications or information service provided over such high-speed access service.
(l) The term "video services" means video programming services without regard to delivery technology, including Internet Protocol technology ("Internet Protocol television or IPTV") and video programming provided as a part of a service that enables users to access content, information, email or other services offered over the public Internet. The term "video programming" means any programming as defined in 47 USCS Section 522(20).
(m) The term "Voice over Internet Protocol services" or "VoIP services" means any service that: (i) enables real-time, two-way voice communications that originate from or terminate to the user's location in Internet Protocol or any successor protocol; (ii) uses a broadband connection from the user's location; and (iii) permits users generally to receive calls that originate on the Public Switched Telephone Network and to terminate calls to the Public Switched Telephone Network.
(n) The term "commercial mobile services" means any services as defined in 47 USCS Section 332(d).
(o) The term "Internet Protocol-enabled services" or "IP-enabled services" means any service, capability, functionality, or application provided using Internet Protocol, or any successor protocol, that enables an end user to send or receive a communication in Internet Protocol format, or any successor format, regardless of whether the communications is voice, data or video. Nothing contained in this paragraph shall apply to retail services that are tariffed by the commission.
(p) "Broadband service provider" means an entity that provides broadband services to others on a wholesale basis or to end-use customers on a retail basis.
(q) "Broadband operator" means a broadband service provider that uses the electric delivery system of any public utility of the type as defined in paragraph (d)(i) of this section with the public utility's consent to provide broadband services.
(r) "Electric delivery system" means the poles, lines, fiber, cables, broadband system, materials, equipment, easements and other facilities or properties used by any public utility of the type as defined in paragraph (d)(i) of this section to deliver or facilitate the delivery, sale or use of electric energy.
(s) "Eligible municipality" means any municipality with a population of greater than One Hundred Thousand (100,000) according to the latest decennial census which has been the subject of litigation by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act, 42 USC Section 300(f) et seq.
(t) "Eligible homeowners association" means any homeowners association created and governed by restrictive covenants, if the subdivision subject to these covenants:
(i) Was constructed prior to 1970 outside of municipal boundaries;
(ii) Was subsequently annexed by an eligible municipality, irrespective of whether the municipality was an eligible municipality at the time of annexation or subsequently became eligible; and
(iii) Is adjacent to which a ground water well system originally designed to supply the subdivision which continues to provide drinking water to a private user is located.
SECTION 2. Section 77-3-5, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
77-3-5. (1) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, and subject only to the limitations imposed in this chapter and in accordance with the provisions of this chapter, the Public Service Commission shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over the intrastate business and property of public utilities and, for purposes of clarification of the existing scope of said exclusive original jurisdiction, such exclusive original jurisdiction extends, but is not limited to: the establishment of retail rates; challenges, including customer complaints, to the amount of a retail rate or customer bill or whether such rate is just and reasonable; and challenges to the validity or accuracy of rates charged by a public utility, or to the accuracy or reliability of information submitted to the Public Service Commission by a public utility or other person in support of or in opposition to a proposed or approved rate, regardless of the legal theory upon which any such challenge is made. However, the commission shall not have jurisdiction over the production and gathering of natural gas or the sale of natural gas in or within the vicinity of the field where produced, or over the facilities and equipment utilized in any such operations, including, but not limited to, such facilities as separators, scrubbers and gasoline plants of all types. Further, the commission shall not have jurisdiction over the governance, management or other internal affairs of entities as described by paragraphs (b) and (c) below. Moreover, the commission shall not have jurisdiction to regulate the rates for the sales and/or distribution:
(a) Of gas, water, electricity or sewage disposal services by municipalities to such persons as said municipalities are authorized by law to serve;
(b) Of gas or electricity by cooperative gas or electric power associations to the members thereof as consumers, except as provided by Section 77-3-17, where service is rendered in a municipality;
(c) Of water or sewage disposal service by nonprofit corporations or associations where the governing body of such corporation or association is elected by the consumers thereof or appointed by the county board of supervisors; or
(d) Of water by districts organized under the provisions of Chapter 45, Laws of 1966-1967, Extraordinary Session.
(2) All Hinshaw natural gas pipeline systems shall be subject to the regulation and jurisdiction of the commission with regard to rates, services, and facilities.
SECTION 3. Section 77-3-11, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
77-3-11. (1) No person
shall construct, acquire, extend or operate equipment for manufacture, mixing,
generating, transmitting or distributing natural or manufactured gas, or mixed
gas, or water, for any intrastate sale to or for the public for compensation,
or for the operation of a public utility operating a business and equipment or
facilities as contemplated by * * * Section
77-3-3(d)(iii), without first having obtained from the commission a
certificate that the present or future public convenience and necessity require
or will require the operation of such equipment or facility.
(2) No person shall construct, acquire, extend or operate equipment for manufacture, generating, transmitting or distributing electricity for any intrastate or interstate sale to or for the public for compensation without first having obtained from the commission a certificate that the present and future public convenience and necessity require or will require the operation of such equipment or facility. Provided, however, nothing herein contained shall be construed to require a joint municipal electric power agency organized in accordance with the provisions of Section 77-5-201 et seq., Mississippi Code of 1972, to obtain any permit, license, certificate or approval from the Mississippi Public Service Commission.
(3) No person shall construct, acquire, extend or operate equipment or facilities for collecting, transmitting, treating or disposing of sewage, or otherwise operating an intrastate sewage disposal service, to or for the public for compensation, without first having obtained from the commission a certificate that the present or future public convenience and necessity require or will require the operation of such equipment or facilities.
(4) However, nothing herein shall be construed to require any certificate of convenience and necessity from the commission for the production and gathering of natural gas, the sale of natural gas in or within the vicinity of the field where produced, the distribution or sale of liquefied petroleum gas, the sale of natural gas to the ultimate consumer for use as a motor vehicle fuel, or for the facilities and equipment utilized in any such operations.
(5) Upon complaints filed by not less than ten percent (10%) of the total subscribers or three thousand five hundred (3,500) subscribers of a public utility, whichever is less, then the commission shall hold a hearing on the adequacy of service as contemplated in Section 77-3-21.
(6) With respect to any facility or contract for a facility serving a customer under Section 77-3-271, nothing in this section shall supersede the provisions of Section 77-3-271.
(7) (a) No person shall construct, acquire, extend or operate a Hinshaw natural gas pipeline system without having first obtained from the commission a certificate that the present or future public convenience and necessity require or will require such action. Approvals from the commission shall certify approval and state acknowledgement of the commission's jurisdiction over facilities, rates and services.
(b) Such certification shall deem the authorized activity, including all associated facilities, rates and services, as just and reasonable, carrying all such associated authority and rights, including, but not limited to, eminent domain rights.
(c) Hinshaw natural gas pipeline systems shall not be required to seek authority from the commission for minor construction activities, including, but not limited to, construction of new interconnects, and/or maintenance activities related to existing pipeline facilities.
(d) All jurisdictional contracts executed between a Hinshaw natural gas pipeline system and a third party shall be filed with the commission. Within thirty (30) days of filing, the commission shall either approve the contract with a finding that it is just and reasonable and in the public interest or order further review of the contract prior to approval. Such review by the commission may include analysis-type mechanisms including, but not limited to, cost of service. If the commission has not ordered further review of the contract within thirty (30) days from the date of filing, the contract shall be considered automatically approved.
SECTION 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2026.