Today in Fortnightly

Was visiting NARUC last week. We were talking about Commissioner Ruth Kretschmer of Illinois, who retired after nearly twenty years in 2003. You may recall the column I recently wrote about her, the longest serving female regulator of utilities. 

Which begs the question. Who was the longest serving commissioner, period, male or female?

Most of you know the abundance of natural gas, hence its low price, is due to the fracking revolution.  And that the public's electric and gas utility bills are relatively low as a result.

So you might find of interest this transcript of the March 6^th Democratic debate, where the presidential candidates had a food fight over fracking:  

Residential electric rates haven't decreased year-over-year since 2002 (US average). But the Energy Department forecasts a decrease in 2016.

The forecast was in the Short-Term Energy Outlook that came out last week. 

It does project that rates will increase in 2017. The agency expects natural gas prices to rebound and rise in 2017, driving electric rates up with them. 

The decrease in residential rates this year will be only the fifth time that the year-over year US average has fallen since 1990. Three of the five times were in the late 1990's.

In the northeast, consumers paid 8.6 percent less for electricity in February than they did a year ago, in February 2015. That's almost a 10 percent price cut. 

In the south, consumers paid 3.8 percent less than a year ago. That's a sizable cut too, though not as extraordinary as what northeasterners have enjoyed.

In the Midwest, consumers paid 0.5 percent more than they did a year ago. Roughly equal to increase in the overall consumer price index for the region. There, the dramatic fall in natural gas prices had less of a benefit.