Regulatory Matters:

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2022

Regulatory Assets and Liabilities Disclosure [Abstract]

We had the following regulatory assets and liabilities (in thousands):


	As of		As of
	March 31, 2022		December 31, 2021
Regulatory assets
Winter Storm Uri (a)	$	438,675	$	509,025
Deferred energy and fuel cost adjustments (b)	67,068		59,973
Deferred gas cost adjustments (b)	1,917		9,488
Gas price derivatives (b)	220		2,584
Deferred taxes on AFUDC (b)	7,420		7,457
Employee benefit plans and related deferred taxes (c)	87,947		88,923
Environmental (b)	1,375		1,385

Loss on reacquired debt (b)	20,561		21,011

Deferred taxes on flow through accounting (b)	69,387		63,243
Decommissioning costs (b)	5,339		5,961
Other regulatory assets (b)	23,435		27,549
Total regulatory assets	723,344		796,599
Less current regulatory assets	(265,496)		(270,290)
Regulatory assets, non-current	$	457,848	$	526,309

Regulatory liabilities
Deferred energy and gas costs (b)	$	38,343	$	6,113

Employee benefit plan costs and related deferred taxes (c)	31,943		32,241
Cost of removal (b)	181,690		179,976

Excess deferred income taxes (c)	259,856		264,042
Other regulatory liabilities (c)	23,352		20,579
Total regulatory liabilities	535,184		502,951
Less current regulatory liabilities	(52,742)		(17,574)
Regulatory liabilities, non-current	$	482,442	$	485,377

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(a) Timing of Winter Storm Uri incremental cost recovery and associated carrying costs vary by jurisdiction and some jurisdictions are still subject to pending applications with the respective utility commission. See further information below.

(b) Recovery of costs, but we are not allowed a rate of return.

(c) In addition to recovery or repayment of costs, we are allowed a return on a portion of this amount or a reduction in rate base.

Regulatory Activity

Except as discussed below, there have been no other significant changes to our Regulatory Matters from those previously disclosed in Note 2 of the Notes to the Consolidated Financial Statements in our 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Winter Storm Uri

In February 2021, a prolonged period of historic cold temperatures across the central United States, which covered all of our Utilities’ service territories, caused a substantial increase in heating and energy demand and contributed to unforeseeable and unprecedented market prices for natural gas and electricity. As a result of Winter Storm Uri, we incurred significant incremental fuel, purchased power and natural gas costs.

Our Utilities submitted Winter Storm Uri cost recovery applications in our state jurisdictions seeking to recover $546 million of these incremental costs through separate tracking mechanisms over a weighted-average recovery period of 3.5 years. These incremental cost estimates are subject to adjustments as final decisions are issued by the respective utility commissions. In these applications, we seek approval to recover carrying costs. For the three months ended March 31, 2022 and 2021, $2.3 million and $0, respectively, of carrying costs were accrued and recorded to a regulatory asset.

On January 27, 2022, Kansas Gas received approval from the KCC for their Winter Storm Uri cost recovery settlement with final rates implemented in February 2022. In March 2022, Colorado Electric and Colorado Gas received approval from the CPUC for their respective Winter Storm Uri cost recovery settlements with final rates implemented in April 2022.

To date, Colorado Electric, Colorado Gas, Iowa Gas, Kansas Gas, Nebraska Gas and South Dakota Electric received commission approval of their Winter Storm Uri cost recovery applications. Additionally, Arkansas Gas and Wyoming Gas received approval for interim cost recovery subject to a final decision on carrying costs and recovery periods at a later date. For the three months ended March 31, 2022, our Utilities collected $73 million of Winter Storm Uri incremental costs and carrying costs from customers. As of March 31, 2022, we estimate that our remaining Winter Storm Uri regulatory asset has a weighted-average recovery period of 3.1 years.

TCJA

As part of Kansas Gas’s 2021 rate review settlement agreement, Kansas Gas will deliver $3.0 million of TCJA and state tax reform benefits to customers, annually, for three years starting in 2022 (approximately $9.1 million of total benefits expected to be delivered). For the three months ended March 31, 2022, Kansas Gas delivered $0.8 million of TCJA-related bill credits to customers.

These bill credits, which resulted in a reduction of revenue, were offset by a reduction in income tax expense and resulted in a minimal impact to Net income for the three months ended March 31, 2022.

Arkansas Gas

On December 10, 2021, Arkansas Gas filed a rate review with the APSC seeking recovery of significant infrastructure investments in its 7,200-mile natural gas pipeline system. The rate review requests $22 million in new annual revenue with a capital structure of 50.9% equity and 49.1% debt and a return on equity of 10.2%. The request seeks to finalize rates in the fourth quarter of 2022.