Marietta Natural Gas, owned by the Marietta Board of Light and Waterworks, applied to the Georgia Public Service Commission for authority to provide retail natural-gas service outside the city. Competing private marketers intervened and argued that the municipal entity could not qualify under the Natural Gas Competition and Deregulation Act. The Commission dismissed the application. The superior court reversed, finding that Marietta Natural Gas qualified as a statutory person, that the city could create it, and that the Municipal Gas Authority could supply it. The Court of Appeals reversed the superior court. It held that the governing statutes and Marietta’s municipal charter did not authorize the city to create the proposed entity for the requested activity. Because the Commission could dismiss the application on that ground, the court did not reach the other statutory-authority questions or issue an advisory ruling. The decision addressed the boundary between municipal power, utility regulation, and statutory authorization in Georgia’s deregulated natural-gas market.