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Frontlines

Lost in Translation

Critics say FERC's filed rate doctrine is wrong for the times.

It’s quite remarkable how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has been able to pound a square peg into a round hole. With not much more than a wink and a smile, FERC has taken a depression-era law meant for monopolies — the Federal Power Act — and has made it serve double duty as a foundation for competitive power markets. Yet FERC’s reinterpretation, for all its good intentions, may prove inadequate in the long run to define and support full-fledged energy markets.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines

The U.S. faces a near doubling of population this century. Will there be enough power for the people?

Frontlines

The U.S. faces a near doubling of population this century. Will there be enough power for the people?

On this the 75th anniversary of its publication, -a journal that has sought out the truth through its investigation and understanding, been a place for knowledge and scholarship, and been a medium for intellectual discourse within the energy industry-looks out to the future.

In 2004, the quintessential question remains what it was 75 years ago: How will the energy industry meet the demands of tomorrow?

Byline: 
Richard Stavros
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Frontlines: You're Fired!

Utilities have little to show for the millions they pay in campaign contributions.

If Donald Trump could call Congress on the carpet, he would send lawmakers packing with those two now infamous words, “You’re fired!” from his reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Now think of how many times Congress has failed to pass an energy bill without incident.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines: Sticker Shock

Electricity rates may be heading skyward sooner than we think.

Even in regulated states, balancing shareholder interest against ratepayer interest is still more art than science. A fact that utilities will always dread, as long as there are rate cases.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines: Still More Blackouts?

Do-nothing regulators scare off investment, raising prospects for yet another large-scale power failure.

Let's hope the industry spends the money before Mother Nature throws her next pop quiz.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines

Is FERC the rightful heir?

Frontlines

Is FERC the rightful heir?

The possibility that energy legislation drafted last year won't pass in 2004 has created a power vacuum. Who now is czar of electric utility reliability? Language in the proposed bill would have answered that question. But when Congress demurred, did that imply an endorsement of the ?

Byline: 
Richard Stavros
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FERC Throws Down The Gauntlet

The legal battle of the century is ready to begin.

A FERC order late last year — that AEP must join the PJM grid to meet conditions of its 2000 merger with Central and Southwest Corp. — was tantamount to a declaration of war with state regulators. At the center of the issue is whether FERC has authority to pre-empt the states on development of regional transmission organizations.
Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines

CERA's Daniel Yergin says global gas markets will define the new century, just as oil did for the last 100 years.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates Chairman Daniel Yergin captures in a few words oil's extraordinary past. Might those words one day describe the next 100 years of natural gas development? Talking with Yergin in early November, I found a man convinced that the forces that shaped a global oil market are at work in shaping a global market for natural gas. I'll be sharing some of his words with you.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines

Regulators are starting to show signs of strain over the restructuring debate.

Up to now, many in the industry thought everybody but the regulators had tired of the constant back-and-forth over regional market issues such as standard market design. This is not to say that state regulators have been able to find any common resolution. In fact, in our annual Regulators Forum on page 22, PUC chiefs from five states continue to disagree on what role the federal government should have.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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Frontlines

It would join an RTO but dictate the terms-a dangerous game that has the industry talking.

It would join an RTO but dictate the terms-a dangerous game that has the industry talking. When I talked a few months ago with AEP President and CEO Linn Draper Jr., he discussed how his company would have joined the PJM RTO in March were it not for the backlash he was getting from certain state regulators.

Byline: 

Richard Stavros

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