Energy Policy Act of 1992

Reducing Rate Shocks

Original-cost ratemaking doesn’t suit the challenges facing utilities today.

Levelized rates can serve customers’ interests, while also accelerating capital investment and providing an economic stimulus to the economy.

Going, Going ...

Clean energy jobs will be gone soon, if America fails to commit.

America needs an energy policy today that will bring together our best and brightest, harness the limitless capabilities of our research institutions, and invest whatever it takes to ensure America’s leadership in clean energy technologies. The result will be to create billion-dollar industries and millions of new jobs.

Frontiers of Efficiency

What conservation potential assessments tell us about ‘achievable’ efficiency.

Regulators across the country are relying on conservation-potential assessments to guide their policy decisions. Models based on macroeconomic analysis, end-use forecasting and accounting measurements provide different ways to assess the achievability of conservation and efficiency goals.

The Constellation Experience

Ring-fencing after the subprime meltdown.

When Électricité de France stepped in to buy Constellation Energy’s nuclear assets and help the company avoid bankruptcy, the Maryland Public Service Commission conditioned the sale on a set of ring-fencing provisions. The industry has been using such structures to protect ratepayers in complex and high-risk M&A transactions since the 1990s. The protection isn’t foolproof, however—and it can bring problematic regulatory trade-offs.

Mending Our Broken Capacity Markets

The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.

The ability to provide reliable capacity is becoming both riskier and more costly to society and investors alike.

RTOs: Facts, Not Fiction

The benefits and future challenges of regional transmission organizations.

Ten years after the initial Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that set in motion the establishment of RTOs, it is hard to dispute that the mature organized markets with independent management of the grid have achieved tangible benefits for all customers. It is important to remind ourselves of the accomplishments and challenges ahead.

The Need for Nuclear Now

States will play a significant role in the resurgence of nuclear power plants in America.

At times, various conditions align and set the stage for achieving goals that may have appeared to be unreachable. Last summer, the Boston Red Sox were all but eliminated from contention, but then won an amazing stretch of baseball games that resulted in a World Series championship.

A similar scenario can be applied to the U.S. nuclear industry-producer of a steady, low-cost, environmentally important electricity source poised to thrive with the possibility of new plant construction in the not-so-distant future.

Perspective

Congress should not impose a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

Perspective

Congress should not impose a federal renewable portfolio standard (RPS).

Since 1978, the federal government has relied on tax incentives to promote the generation of electric power from renewable resources-"green" power from hydroelectric facilities and windmills, solar panels and photovoltaic cells, facilities that burn biomass, municipal waste and landfill gas, and geothermal and ocean thermal resources.

Commission Watch

CPUC questioned historic oversight authority.

Commission Watch

CPUC questioned historic oversight authority.

To guarantee the continued growth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) importation and use in the United States, the energy industry needs to pay close attention to govern the regulation, siting, and operation of LNG import terminals-issues traditionally overseen by the federal government.

Perspective

Two Cato analysts suggest a return to the past-vertical integration, but now with no state regulators.

Perspective

Two Cato analysts suggest a return to the past-vertical integration, but now with no state regulators.

The defeat of the energy bill in the Senate last year has thrown electricity restructuring back on its heels. There clearly is no consensus among politicians or academics regarding how this industry ought to be organized or how it might best be regulated. Finding our way out of this morass requires a reconsideration of how we got to this dismal point in our regulatory journey.