The Massachusetts Supreme Court has vacated and remanded a Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) decision on environmental externalities, agreeing with Massachusetts Electric Co. that the DPU had no authority to require electric utilities to select new power sources based on externality values that encompass costs ratepayers otherwise would not incur.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) plans to issue interim rules in June 1995 allowing competitors to seek authority to offer local telephone service in the state. (The CPUC also recently completed a plan to open the "local toll" market to competition.) The CPUC directed all interested parties to seek a settlement of the issues arising under its plan to move the local market to full competition by 1997.
The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved comprehensive rate and service tariffs enabling AT&T Communications of New York, Inc. (AT&T) and Frontier Communications of Rochester, Inc. (Frontier) to provide local telephone services in the Rochester, NY, service area. The PSC expects to approve a third set of tariffs for Time Warner AxS of Rochester, L.P. early this year. The new tariffs will allow telephone customers in the Rochester area to choose between the three new market entrants and the existing local carrier, Rochester Telephone Corp.
While lowering current rates for electric gas and water services provided by Wisconsin Power & Light Co., the Wisconsin Public Service Commission (PSC) has also approved a series of gas and electric incentive mechanisms for the utility.
The ratemaking modifications include a natural gas procurement incentive that works through the company's adjustment clause and includes a link to spot commodity prices for gas supply as well as a sharing mechanism to allocate the risk of cost changes between ratepayers and shareholders.
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has decided to continue its five-year-old revenue sharing plan for U S WEST Communications, a local exchange telephone carrier, for one year. It initiated a workshop to develop a new regulatory plan for the carrier, and also proposed specific quality-of-service standards and penalties due to a recent decline in service quality.
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Nuclear plant licensees could face an added level of state regulation just as they move to cut costs.Permanent disposal capacity for low-level radioactive waste (LLW) and spent nuclear fuel, long a top priority for the nuclear industry, has not yet become a reality. But the storage question draws more attention for its impact on nuclear power costs as electric generation grows more competitive.
In less than a decade, three powerful trends will converge on gas distributors.
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Everyone talks about them.
Each year hundreds of oil or electric customers call Boston Gas to ask about fuel-switching. What do they look for?A gas utility can boost sales only one way-by gaining new customers. And in today's slowly growing economy, conservation trends limit growth opportunities. The average household today uses two-thirds the energy of 15 years ago.