Law & Lawyers

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has refused to reconsider its December 14, 1994, policy statement on hydroelectric plant decommissioning. That policy upholds the FERC's authority to deny new project licenses when existing licenses expire and to order owners to remove a dam during the relicensing process (Docket Nos. RM93-23-000, RM93-23-001). Commissioner James J.

There is a price to pay for becoming a lean, mean fighting machine, and utilities paid the price in 1994.

A number of electric utilities saw revenues increase last year on the strength of higher sales, but the costs associated with laying off hundreds of employees and downsizing company operations took a significant bite out of earnings.

A PUBLIC UTILITIES FORTNIGHTLY survey of the nation's top 20 electric utilities shows an increase in their combined 1994 revenues to $107 billion, a healthy 3.6-percent rise over the previous year.

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has announced an interim policy requiring electric utilities to "market test" all proposals for new capacity additions. The requirement grew out of a highly contentious proceeding involving a failed proposal by Jersey Central Power & Light Co. to purchase an interest in generating facilities from Duquesne Power & Light Co. in Pennsylvania and to construct major transmission facilities.

The Kentucky Public Service Commission (PSC) has moved closer to full competition in the telecommunications intraLATA market by approving an implementation schedule, monitoring rules, and cost-recovery methods for intraLATA equal access. It had established the equal access, or "dialing parity," goal in a 1991 order on competition in the telephone market.