Fortnightly Magazine - September 1 1996

While reviewing interconnection issues generic to competition in the telecommunications local exchange market, the Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC) has mandated that local exchange carriers (LECs) offer all basic local exchange services for resale at wholesale rates to competitors as well as affiliates.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has directed Virginia Electric and Power Co., a subsidiary of Dominion Resources, Inc., to adopt conflict-of-interest standards to govern board of director membership. The SCC also directed the utility to file an annual independent audit of its affiliate transactions and to cooperate with commission staff in determining whether "Virginia Power is paying for duplicative executive services" from its holding company parent. The action grows out of an SCC investigation into a 1994 public dispute between the utility and Dominion Resources.

Harkening back to the pre-Order 636 era, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has issued two orders approving firm-to-the-wellhead rates for Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp. (Docket Nos. RP92-137-016 and RP93-136-000) and Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. (Docket Nos. RP91-203-000 and RP92-132-000).

In initial decisions, one administrative law judge had approved firm-to-the-wellhead rates in the Tennessee case; another had deemed them anticompetitive in the Transco case.

in energy service companies to boost earnings beyond the normal growth rate?Going on the "defensive-offensive."

In the early 1990s, flush with utility money from its corporate parent, Entergy Systems and Service, Inc. began expanding to provide competitive energy services.