California Rides the Tiger

Fortnightly Magazine - January 1 1995
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Revolutions rarely succeed without a struggle. At the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the move to restructure the state's electric utility industry is no exception. The stakes are enormous. For starters, annual revenues at the state's investor-owned electric utilities (IOUs) exceed $18 billion, making up

2 percent of California's gross state product. Competitively priced electricity is vital to California's $800-billion-a-year economy, one would think. And with its sweeping restructuring plan, the CPUC has found itself riding a tiger, hoping it won't get swallowed whole in the process.

But after five full-panel

hearings in the past six months (em featuring over 100 witnesses, not to mention comments from the general public (em virtually the only consensus to emerge is that very few people are satisfied with IOU regulation in California.

They want lower rates, which at the current level of 10 to 11 cents a kilowatt-hour approach twice the national average and rise higher than those of neighboring states; but they don't agree on how to achieve them.

The CPUC had promised to issue a final policy statement last August, following the April 20, 1994, release of its restructuring proposal, dubbed the "Blue Book." That deadline proved wildly optimistic.

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