The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has asked for comments on alternatives to traditional cost-of-service pricing for interstate natural gas pipeline transportation rates (Docket No. RM95-6-000). In response to many requests from pipeline companies to approve rates based on other pricing methods, some cost-based and some not, the FERC wants to develop a framework for analyzing alternative proposals.
Louisville Gas and Electric Co. (LG&E) has filed a settlement offer on comparability of electric transmission, the result of negotiations with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) staff since November. The first of its kind filed at the FERC, the settlement forms part of LG&E's comparable transmission service case, which involves the utility's network and point-to-point tariffs.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has accepted a settlement agreement between Massachusetts Electric Co. (ME), the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), and Boston Edison Co., which decides stranded investment and wheeling issues arising from ME's loss of MBTA as a retail customer (Docket No. ER94-129-000). The case arose in 1991, when the Massachusetts legislature designated MBTA a "domestic electric utility," allowing MBTA to leave ME. MBTA then signed a wholesale supply agreement with Boston Edison.
Here we go again. Last year, the 103rd Congress failed to pass the much-promised and highly touted telecommunications reform legislation aimed at bringing the antiquated Communications Act of 1934 into the 21st century. Now it's up to the 104th Congress, and both parties have draft legislation ready to go.
In February, Sen.
During the last decade, the natural gas industry in the United States has been transformed from a heavily regulated business to one facing competitive markets. This transformation grew out of the failure of regulation; regulators, suppliers, pipelines, and customers all played a part. It continues today as the industry restructures and builds new institutions.A series of regulatory crises forced deregulation in stages: First, wellhead prices; second, gas contracts; and finally, pipeline transportation.
California's 1993 qualifying facility (QF) auction dramatically illustrates problems that can be encountered in structuring auctions for electric utility solicitations of supply-side resources from qualifying cogeneration and small power production facilities.
In the 1993 California QF auction, three California utilities were to select QFs that would be awarded long-term purchased-power contr
Electric restructuring weighs heavy on the mind these days. Drastic remedies are born more of hope than vision. Look at the April 20, 1994, proposal from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for mandated retail wheeling (the Electric Restructuring Order, often referred to as the "Blue Book").1
The Blue Book became a catalyst for national debate. But the Blue Book did not create the problem; it only reacted.
The other day I read in the New York Times that evolution is dead. For humans, at least. It seems we don't have enough sabre-toothed tigers around anymore to cull the weak from the strong.
Now that doesn't mean Darwin was wrong. Few dispute his "survival of the fittest." But without the normal complement of predators, we're each as "fit" as the other. The Times article ("Evolution of Humans May at Last Be Faltering," William K. Stevens, March 14, 1995, p.
Charles B. Yulish was named v.p., corporate communications, for the U.S. Enrichment Corp. Yulish previously was executive v.p. and managing director of the E. Bruce Harrison Co. He began his career with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
Dan Bart was promoted to the new position of v.p., standards and technology, to serve both the Electronic Industries Association and the Telecommunications Industry Association. Bart will retain his current responsibilities with TIA.
Allen Arvig, president of East Otter Tail Telephone Co.
Northern Border Pipeline Co. has filed for federal approval to extend its pipeline system 218 miles deeper into the Midwest, at a cost of $370 million. Sponsors say the project could be in service by November 1997.