Through System Safety and Integrity riders, or SSI riders, Atmos recovers from customers certain system safety costs that it incurs each year to maintain its pipeline system.
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The pipelines division of Atmos Energy, the North Texas gas utility, has collected more than $40 million in extra charges since 2024 to pay for system safety testing, according to a review of regulatory filings.
Assessed through “System Safety and Integrity” riders, these charges accrue on top of other interim assessments made by Atmos outside the context of its general rate cases.
Through System Safety and Integrity riders, or SSI riders, Atmos recovers from customers certain system safety costs that it incurs each year to maintain its pipeline system. As noted in Atmos filings, the SSI represents the amount of those costs above a benchmark set in a preceding rate case — in this case a pipeline base rate case from 2023 (Case No. OS-23-00013758).
In 2024, the SSI rider (under Case No. 00017667) added $18.7 million to annual system costs. In 2025, it amounted to $23 million (Case No. OS-25-0002811). These costs flow indirectly into home bills based on usage.
Why The SSI?
Federal law requires gas utilities to conduct intensive integrity and leak testing on their pipeline systems on a regular basis. This testing requires utilities to shut down individual lines on a rotating basis — typically every three to five years.
These integrity tests can cost millions of dollars on a systemwide basis, but they also vary widely from year to year. In response, gas utilities have successfully argued before the Texas Railroad Commission for the use of annual riders to recover these costs because they are too variable and unpredictable to include in less frequent general rate cases. The SSI is such a rider.
Under the SSI, Atmos receives authorization to collect extra system integrity costs on an annual basis, but these costs are subject to later refunds or surcharges to the extent they vary from actual costs as demonstrated through a later true-up process. Atmos customers pay the SSI assessments indirectly based on a calculation of both usage and the maximum daily quantity of gas flowing over the overall system.
Atmos does not receive a financial return on SSI expenditures. The Steering Committee of Cities Served by Atmos has not raised objections to Atmos’s use of safety-related SSI assessments.
Other Charges
Atmos assess the SSI in addition to other interim charges, including those associated with its annual capital spending. Overall, capital spending by Atmos has more than tripled since 2017, according to company financial reports.
About ACSC
The Steering Committee of Cities Served by Atmos is a coalition of 188 cities in North and Central Texas that participates in rate setting matters at the Railroad Commission. ACSC has been a regular participant in rate cases of Atmos Energy Corp. and its predecessors for more than 25 years.