Fortnightly Magazine - March 1 1998

ARE THINGS REALLY THAT DIFFERENT ON THE other side of the world?

Two surveys say no (em at least in respect to electric restructuring issues. Andersen Consulting's The Impact of the Internet on Energy Retailing polled industry leaders in Australia; Washington International Energy Group's 1998 Electric Industry Outlook talked to their American counterparts.

Similar questions posed in both surveys show that industry leaders on opposite sides of the globe share many concerns as their countries move toward electric competition.

THREE FACTORS (em RESTRUCTURING, TECHNOLOGY AND environmental controls (em now create both reason and opportunity for electric utilities to lower their property taxes, which often make up a substantial cost of doing business.

Property tax valuation is fairly straightforward. Most states compute property taxes on fair market value, or what a hypothetical buyer and seller would agree the property is worth, with both parties having knowledge of the relevant facts and neither compelled to buy or sell.

ON APRIL 1, 1997, nearly four months after Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge (R) had signed the state's Electricity Generation Customer Choice and Competition Act, PECO Energy Co. filed its restructuring plan with the state Public Utility Commission. To bolster the plan, PECO gathered a group of stakeholders to review it and craft a settlement. That agreement, somewhat different from the April restructuring plan, was filed with the PUC on Aug. 25. It became known as the Partial Settlement.

On Oct.

WELCOME BACK, MY FRIENDS, TO THE SHOW that never ends."

So said two weary commission staffers, trudging out of the hearing room late Friday afternoon, Jan. 31, as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission adjourned its technical conference on the financial outlook for natural gas pipelines.

The hearing ran way behind schedule (em further evidence that before she left last summer for the Department of Energy, former FERC Chairwoman Elizabeth Moler neglected to pass along to successor James Hoecker whatever gene she possessed that allowed her to keep meetings moving right along.