New Mexico's PUC goes down in flames.

This story has everything: politics, favoritism, a stock price crash, extortion (a long-ago crime by a certifiable nut), a utility rate case (I love'em), Ivy League economists (like moths to a flame), and finally, a last minute stay of execution, perhaps saving the utility from default on its revolving line of credit. Heck, even Enron's involved.

What's missing, however, is a clear understanding of who the good guys are.

A tale of three deals - ADT, Westinghouse, KCPL - at Western Resources.

Sensing changes in the utility industry, Western Resources Inc. in 1994 began to examine what it was and what it needed to be - to customers, to investors and to other constituencies. Through an extended exercise in strategic planning, we produced a rather typical end product: a document outlining a hypothetical future of growth, financial strength and customer satisfaction.

As utility takeovers break new ground, the FERC ponders proposed rules, perhaps already out of date.

A year ago, when U.S. Antitrust Czar Joel Klein talked of a "window of opportunity" for electric utility mergers, he didn't predict when it would close.

And it hasn't yet.

In the 12 months leading up to January 1998, when Klein had addressed the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission through its "Distinguished Speakers" series, only the ill-timed Primergy deal had been turned down. The next year, 1998, would prove no different.

Subsidiaries grapple with codes of conduct. Did regulators overreact?

PG&E Corp. has threatened to appeal - all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if need be - a $1.68 million California Public Utilities Commission fine, slapped on it for violating affiliate rules.

The fine marked the loudest shot to date in what appears to be part two in the electric and gas restructuring wars:

The Affiliate Rules Wars.

These skirmishes promise to pit independent power marketers and out-of-state utility affiliates against the affiliates of incumbents.

Trade groups carry clout with members, could emerge as next energy aggregators.

Electric utility restructuring has finally arrived as an A-list topic at many mainstream trade associations. According to a new study by the Second Opinion market research firm, energy deregulation is one of the top three issues of concern to groups as disparate as the Chemical Manufacturers Association and the Retail Merchants Association of New Hampshire.

That could foretell a new wave of competition for retail energy.

EPA inventory opens generators to scrutiny, especially if they burn coal.

Hazardous emissions are one thing. Damaging publicity is something else-especially in the point-and-click world of Internet access.

In the coming year, the fuels that utilities choose to generate electricity will fall under a stronger media microscope. That's when coal- and oil-fired electricity generators must begin reporting information about their accumulated releases of toxic chemicals for 1998.

IER's Bradley calls global warming a red herring, warns of "open-ended journey" paved with cash.

There is an even bigger problem for California than the $3 billion alleged cost of meeting the Kyoto Protocol (see "Knocked out by Kyoto Protocol?" Public Utilities Fortnightly, Oct. 1, 1998). Kyoto does virtually nothing to stabilize climate.

Rising projections, with few expenditures to date, paint an uncertain picture.

"In almost all cases, companies will have material events and changes requiring updated year 2000 disclosure in each quarterly and annual report filed with us."

That was the general mandate suggested by the Securities and Exchange Commission last summer in its interpretive release on the disclosure requirements for the Y2K issue.

Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson has selected Daniel M. Adamson as deputy assistant secretary for utility technologies, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Adamson had served as special assistant, Office of the Secretary since 1994.

Auctioning gas imbalances offers advantages over bidding on available pipeline capacity.

In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued last summer, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed a series of auctions for all unutilized short-term rights in pipeline capacity, with the most frequent auction being for transmission rights for the next day. All transporters and the pipeline would be required to release available short-term capacity rights to be auctioned. (See FERC Docket RM98-10-000, Regulation of Short-term Nat. Gas Transp.