Quizzed by lawmakers, and buffeted by political winds, regulators ponder an uncertain future.

Agree or not, utility commissioners are part judge, part regulator, and part politician.

Now that incumbent LECs must offer all services for resale, state regulators must decide the appropriate level of discount for the new resale tariffs.

Discounts could put incumbent LECs at a disadvantage, since many local exchanges already price below the cost of service, particularly for basic residential access.

Objective. Estimate market impacts of "1+" dialing parity plus eliminating traditional LATA boundary.

Model. Measure shifts in market dominance between major competitors, by assuming price changes and estimating revenue impacts across range of demand elasticities, to reflect both changed rates and market shares. Also consider changes to revenues collected by U S WEST through carrier access charge (CAC).

Scope. Limited to residential toll calls carried by AT&T and U S WEST. Does not examine commercial toll customers.

Data.

Flexible pricing schemes generally fall into four categories:

Load Retention Rates. Can prevent a customer from exiting system, either by relocating or choosing to self-generate. If retail competition is allowed, load retention rates can prevent customers from choosing a different generation company.

Economic Development Rates. May attract new customers to a service territory, or encourage existing customers to expand operations and boost demand. Differ from load retention rates by purporting to create jobs.

Flexible Rates (Flexrates).

After a year and two task forces, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) could soon have a new structure.

"With all these industry changes, we need to look internally, as commissions are also being asked to change, to see what changes will compliment what's happening out there in the industry," says John Gawronski, NARUC spokesman.

As state public utility commissions (PUCs) undergo restructuring, consumer advocate services also face possible cutbacks.

California PUC:

In California, the CPUC's Vision 2000 plan would affect various independent departments, such as the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), Office of Administrative Law, and Department of Policy. It would recast those agencies into eight divisions: customer services (consumer complaints), human resources, information services, energy, telecommunications, rail safety, carriers, and water.

That's how fast the money pours in to the nation's Nuclear Waste Disposal Fund, one mill at a time. And the money is attracting attention, especially during this election year, with Congress running out of time before its planned August recess.

"Today has been extremely rich in terms of rumors," said Mike McCarthy, administrator of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, when I talked with him on June 28.

"The leadership in the House and Senate have met. People seem to be adjusting their schedules.

Richard D. Spencer, lately of General Electric Corp., has been hired by Equitable Resources, Inc. as v.p. and chief information officer. He was technology programs manager at GE.

Commonwealth Edison Co. has formed a new nuclear division management team. Thomas J. Maiman, senior v.p., is the top executive. He moves from the company's fossil division. Michael J. Wallace, another senior v.p., will market the utility on strategic nuclear business issues.

I was amused by your "Headlines" item on the Reason Foundation's study calling for privatization of TVA and the power marketing administrations due to government subsidization and poor management (May 15, 1996, p. 16). If those were the two overriding issues, one could argue in favor of swapping segments and doing something different with the segment that costs the government the most.

Over the past two and a half years, 10 large mergers have been announced, involving 21 investor-owned electric and gas utilities. Only the MidAmerican Energy merger has been completed, but the estimated market value of the pending mergers is an astounding $40.5 billion. Clearly, this recent wave of merger and acquisition (M&A) activity signals that electric utilities are positioning themselves for future competitive energy markets.

Results from Resource Data International's (RDI's) recent study, U.S.