(1) the regulatory rate freeze imposed under the state's restructuring scheme,

(2) the state-imposed duty to serve that forced Edison to supply electricity to retail customers regardless of price, and

(3) the Jan. 4 order by the state public utility commission that Edison said barred it from obtaining funds to meet its payment obligations to the PX.

The six o'clock news has locked its radar on California's power market meltdown, and rightly so. But that's no reason to overlook the nation's heartland, where a utility coming late to the game has set the pot boiling.

With its own private power grid, Texas thinks it's got restructuring licked.

On Thursday, Dec. 8, as natural gas hit $40 at the citygate for Southern California (prices hit $60 that Friday), I found myself in Colonial Williamsburg, a guest of Michigan State University's Institute of Public Utilities, at the group's annual conference, watching a panel of industry experts try in vain to explain what was happening.