Fortnightly Magazine - July 1 1996

The North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) has rejected a request by proponents of a plan to provide electricity and process steam for a large industrial electric user in the state for a declaration that the plan would not subject the participants to regulation as public utilities under state law.

Under the proposal, National Spinning Co., Inc., a current purchaser of over $3 million in annual industrial electric services from Carolina Power & Light Co., would build facilities to gasify wood waste, produce steam, and generate up to seven megawatts of electricity in partn

Finding the state's long-distance telecommunications market sufficiently competitive, the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) has relaxed price controls for AT&T Communications of New York, Inc., an interexchange carrier (IXC) currently regulated as a dominant provider of long-distance services. Under the settlement agreement, AT&T will freeze price floors and ceilings for basic long-distance service (message toll service, or "MTS") for five years and give customers a one-time rate reduction to reflect lower access charges AT&T must pay to local exchange carriers in the state.

The West Virginia Public Service Commission (PSC) has ruled that it is preempted by federal law from modifying the avoided-cost rate in a purchased-power agreement implemented under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA).

The developers of a qualifying cogeneration facility (QF), Bituminous Power Partners, L.P., had asked the PSC to raise the contract rate for avoided energy in its purchased-power contract with Monongahela Power Co.

The Virginia State Corporation Commission (SCC) has rejected a request from Bell Atlantic-Virginia, Inc., a telecommunications local exchange carrier (LEC), to reclassify intraLATA message toll service (MTS) as competitive under its new alternative regulation plan.