While designing rates for Southern California Edison Co., the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has reaffirmed its commitment to marginal-cost ratemaking "in light of electric industry restructuring." The CPUC used the cost-allocation and rate-design findings to set new rates based on an overall 4.4-percent decrease in revenues adopted in earlier revenue requirement proceedings.
The Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved rates and conditions for interconnection between BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., a local exchange carrier (LEC), and two new competitive providers of local exchange services, Metropolitan Fiber Systems of Florida, Inc. (MFS) and MCI Metro Access Transmission Services, Inc. (MCI). By a separate order, the PSC has adopted provisions for resale of BellSouth services by competing local service providers, including the unbundling of local service components.
To accommodate requirements imposed by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) has issued a set of procedural requirements governing requests for interconnection services. According to the NCUC, the federal timeline for compulsory arbitration of differences arising during the course of interconnection negotiations could leave as little as 85 days to render a decision in each case.
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.
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.
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 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
The North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) has approved price-cap regulation plans for four major telecommunications local exchange carriers (LECs) in the state: BellSouth Telecommunications Inc. (BellSouth), Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Co. (Carolina), Central Telephone Co. (Central), and GTE South, Inc. (GTE). The NCUC rejected allegations by AT&T Communications of the Southern States, Inc., an interexchange carrier (IXC), that a separate "general rate case" was needed to gauge how the shift to price regulation affected LEC earnings.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has upheld a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) ruling that permits Yankee Atomic Electric Co. to recover all costs associated with an abandoned nuclear plant.
In 1992, the utility decided to shut down its nuclear facility in Rowe, MA, after investigating safety concerns raised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) will permit Long Island Lighting Co. (LILCO), a natural gas local distribution company (LDC), to institute temporarily a series of tariff revisions designed to enhance customers' ability to choose competing suppliers of natural gas.
According to PSC staff, the LDC's plan to offer a new array of firm transportation choices constitutes a "reasonable alternative" to full disaggregation of existing sales rates.