Fortnightly Magazine - January 15 1995

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) and Destec Energy Inc. have entered into the nation's first comprehensive transmission and services agreement between a utility and a power marketer. The deal will allow Destec's power marketing subsidiary, Destec Power Services Inc. (DPS), to pool electricity and wholesale it directly using PG&E's transmission lines. A request for plan approval was filed at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 6.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has reaffirmed an earlier ruling permitting telecommunications utilities subject to price-cap regulation to use accrual accounting for post-retirement benefits other than pensions (PBOPs) under SFAS 106. It also warned that it may change its existing policy, which allows recovery of the costs of the accounting change as an exogenous cost under the price-cap form of regulation. The CPUC explained that "strong arguments can be made" that PBOP costs are within the utilities' control and simply normal costs of doing business.

I am under siege. To be more precise, my company and American corporations in general are under siege. In popular media today, corporations are consistently treated as suspect at best (em and demonized at worst. If you switch off your critical faculties when you watch television or go to the movies, you're probably convinced that corporate America is out to destroy this country. In 1964, while campaigning for Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan framed the issue perfectly.

stockholders $39 a share, or about $950 million in aggregate value. The agreement has been approved by both boards of directors. California Energy's tender offer included shares representing a majority of the voting power of Magma as well as funding of financing. The merger is also conditioned on the approval of California Energy's shareholders.