Law & Lawyers

Opponents sometimes mock utilities by invoking the infamous prediction that electricity will become "too cheap to meter." But it was the federal government, not utilities, that said this.

The Eisenhower Administration's chair of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lewis Strauss, made the infamous prediction in a 1954 speech to science writers. He wasn't even referring to the nuclear technology that utilities would start using a decade later. 

You know electricity works hard for you. So don't you take electricity lightly... Without electricity, you'd be in the dark. Like a cave man was, way before man's world was lit up. -Jiminy Cricket, Disney cartoon

1. Interview of former Duke CEO Jim Rogers

[Climate change legislation in 2009] could have passed in the Senate, but the White House was MIA. Because they had just passed health care. They weren't prepared for another major legislative push. There is a lot you can read into the fact that they took a pass. 

I was an early proponent of what has been called incentive ratemaking, price cap regulation or performance based ratemaking for public utilities. I’m cognizant it is not a new idea at all. 

During the 1980’s, the government of the United Kingdom, under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, decided to privatize the nation’s utilities. The utilities had been nationalized in the 1940’s. The UK rejected the US regulatory model, selecting a variant with annual rate adjustment. 

Basic twenty-five electric machines, appliances, devices in most homes excluding lights:

1. one window air conditioner or central air conditioning
2. one gas furnace fan motor/igniter or electric heat
3. one interior thermostat
4. one ceiling, standing or table fan
5. one microwave oven
6. one coffee maker
7. one toaster
8. one refrigerator/freezer
9. one dishwasher
10. one garbage disposal