Why am I not convinced that electric utilities really want to sell off their generating plants? A wires company--is that something to aspire to? Nobody likes to see wires strung every which way along the street. Isn't that why electric utilities call them telephone poles?

I hear utilities say that power production looks too risky. But is a wires-only strategy a retreat back into the womb of regulation?

If power companies expect rates for transmission and distribution to remain regulated, I'm a skeptic. One reason is what's happening with gas pipelines.

THE ROAD TO RETAIL COMPETITION IS A LONG ONE. HAVING realized that, utility management has quelled its initial panic and has begun to concentrate on longer-term objectives. For instance, how much market share am I likely to lose during competition's early stages? And what prices can I charge to various customer classes without incurring a loss in market share?

The answer could affect decisions about future load, asset divestiture and competitive strategies.

AS A FOLLOW UP TO OUR APRIL 1 ARTICLE ON CANADIAN-U.S. energy convergence, Public Utilities Fortnightly interviewed Ontario Energy Minister Jim Wilson to find out what's in store for the province as it moves ahead with restructuring its electricity industry.

CROSS THE COUNTRY, CRITICISM RISES FROM INVESTOR-owned utilities as public power agencies are drawn into regional or national markets through power pools and the geographic expansion of power marketing activities. Whether these agencies are seen as federally funded or just indirectly subsidized, the complaints remain the same: tax advantages, no reciprocity, exemptions from regulation.

Who really has power over the power? Do public power agencies enjoy an advantage, as private industry claims?

HYDROELECTRIC POWER ENGINEERS might fare all right. But office

administrators could face staff reductions of up to 50 percent.

Such are the recommendations filed March 10 by the Cost Review Management Committee assigned to recommend measures to the Bonneville Power Administration for its own internal cost review.

LAST NOVEMBER, Energy Secretary Federico Peña asked the DOE

to study what to recommend about the Tennessee Valley Association in drafting proposed legislation on electric restructuring for the Clinton Administration. He referred the project to a committee of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, led by former South Carolina Congressman Butler Derrick.

The committee issued its report on March 31. The DOE had already released its legislative guidelines on March 25, six days earlier.

SET UP in January by the Ontario Minister of Energy, Science and Technology, and led by Ronald J. Daniels, law faculty dean at the University of Toronto, the Market Design Committee issued its first interim report on March 31, presenting recommendations on two issues: (1) governance, operation and regulation of the Independent Market Operator, and (2) principles of market design.

IMO FUNCTIONS. The functions of the IMO were set out in November in the Ontario provincial white paper on electricity sector reform.

DEREGULATION OF ANY INDUSTRY OFTEN LEADS TO consolidation and merger, which frequently bolsters the involved companies' stock prices.

In the SBC/Pacific Telesis merger, intervenors argued before the California Public Utilities Commission that the change in the value of Pacific Telesis' stock was a measure of the merger's "benefits" to shareholders. They said the PUC should force the merged company to rebate half those benefits to ratepayers.

Analysts use stock market information in an "event study" to measure the economic impact of a particular event.

THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION WANTS U.S. UTILITIES AND businesses to know investments are welcome and that processes soon will ensure the safety of American ventures there.

Nevertheless, it appears to favor traditional, American-style utility regulation, setting rates of return and limiting profits.

The Federal Energy Commission of the Russian Federation wants to create competition wherever possible, according to Andrey F. Zadernyuk, the first chairman of the year-old commission.

COMPETITIVE transition charges. Wires charges. Securitization payments. Every stranded cost recovery mechanism considered to date requires customers to pay for electric utility stranded costs through direct assessments on monthly bills. These charges will continue for many years after competition is introduced.

There is a real irony here: As we seek to introduce competition into the electric industry, we as regulators are forced to invoke all of the most heavy-handed tools to extract payments from citizens.