(a) The General Assembly finds:

(1) It is in the public interest to establish a new regulatory model for the natural gas industry in Georgia to reflect the transition to a reliance on market based competition as the best mechanism for the selection and provision of natural gas services at the most efficient pricing; and

(2) In order to ensure the implementation of this new reliance on market based competition, any regulatory impediments, whether statutory or administrative, to competition for natural gas services must be removed in those areas of the natural gas industry where competition actually exists.

(b) It is the intent of this article to:

(1) Promote competition in the natural gas industry;

(2) Protect the consumer during and after the transition to a competitive natural gas market;

(3) Maintain and encourage safe and reliable natural gas service;

(4) Deregulate those components of the natural gas industry subject to actual competition;

(5) Continue to regulate those natural gas services subject to monopoly power;

(6) Promote an orderly and expeditious transition of the natural gas industry toward fully developed competition;

(7) Provide for rate-making methods which the General Assembly finds appropriate for the provision of natural gas services, including without limitation the use of straight fixed variable rate design, the recovery of certain stranded costs, and the use of alternative forms of rate regulation; and

(8) Allow gas companies the opportunity to compete effectively in a competitive marketplace.