The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has entered a cooperative agreement with the state's Infrastructure Investment Authority to better coordinate efforts by both agencies to improve the viability of small water and wastewater systems across the state.

The commission said many small systems had not increased rates when needed and had become unprofitable. The systems had been unable to acquire financing to make improvements to maintain good service quality and to meet future regulatory challenges.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission has authorized Northern Utilities Inc. to recover coal-tar cleanup costs via a special surcharge.

Under a settlement agreement, ratepayers will pay the full amount of cleanup costs incurred by the LDC on a rolling five-year amortization schedule. The costs will be capped at 4 percent of the company's annual adjusted total firm revenues from sales and transportation customers. Shareholders will bear the carrying costs on all deferred balances during the amortization schedule.

Having issued a comprehensive decision on electric utility restructuring on June 5, the Michigan Public Service Commission nevertheless must yet decide what to do about electric utilities that offer contracts to individual customers with off-the-tariff rate discounts.

Sound bites from state and federal regulators.

Overseas Investment. Michigan certifies plan by Consumers Electric and Gas Co. to bid on the outstanding equity of three electric distribution companies being privatized in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Case No. U-11331, April 14, 1997 (Mi.P.S.C.).

Appliance Repair Rates. New Jersey OKs rates for Public Service Electric and Gas Co.

Through two orders issued on June 11, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has set policy on return on equity for interstate natural gas pipelines (em specifically, the component of long-term dividend growth in the discounted cash flow model.

In both cases, the FERC applied the long-run growth rate of the economy, as measured by the U.S. gross domestic product. (See, Re Northwest Pipeline Corp. Opinion No. 396-B, Docket Nos. RP93-5-025 and RP93-96-005; Re Williston Basin Interstate Pipeline Co., Docket Nos.

Nine members of the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Power Pool filed a revised plan at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to establish an independent system operator for the Mid-Atlantic power market.

The utilities have been battling with lone dissenter PECO Energy over the details of the ISO.

The nine utilities, dubbed the "supporting companies," agree on the form that an ISO should take. In November 1996, the FERC had rejected ISO proposals by both parties as having failed to comply with Order 888.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a request by KN Energy Inc. to convert its 900-mile Pony Express Pipeline from oil to natural gas (Docket No. CP96-477-000). The pipeline was expected to begin operating in August, carrying natural gas from several points in the Rocky Mountains to Kansas City.

Through a separate regulatory authority, subsidiary KN Interstate will construct a 36-mile Riverside lateral to the Kansas City market. The FERC approved rolled-in rate treatment for the pipeline.

The project garnered praise from the FERC.

Two California watchdog groups, The Utility Reform Network and Utility Consumers Action Network, have filed a joint protest at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission against the proposed structure of California's independent system operator and power exchange (Docket Nos. EC96-19-003 and ER96-1663-003).

The groups believe the proposed structures would hurt small consumers. They noted that although small consumers use about one-third of the state's electricity, they only have two votes out of 26 in both the PX and the ISO.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on June 11 approved the request of CSW Power Marketing Inc. to sell energy at market-based rates due to lack of market dominance.

The FERC in May 1996 had denied an application by CSW, an affiliate of Central and South West Corp., to sell power at market-based rates (Docket Nos. ER97-1238-000 and ER96-1348-001). The approval was based on lack of a comparable, open-access transmission tariff on the systems of CSW's public utility affiliates.

Pocketbook issues, like all others, tend to split along political lines.

Meeting on June 12, Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) and members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee focused for the first time on what customers really think about choosing their own energy vendor.

Nevertheless, despite the shift toward pocketbook issues, and away from so-called "inside-the-Beltway" concerns, the testimony came largely from organized consumer groups, and it appeared split down political lines: urban vs. rural, private vs. public, business vs. residential.