Commission

Having approved a performance-based ratemaking mechanism for Southern California Gas Co., the California Public Utilities Commission is free to rule on the merger of Pacific Enterprises (parent company of SoCal Gas) and Enova Corp., which owns San Diego Gas and Electric Co.

The PBR should reduce annual revenues by $160 million. If earnings exceed the authorized 9.49-percent rate of return, then a portion will be returned to customers.

The PBR is effective for five years.

The Georgia Public Service Commission has established standards for issuing certificates to marketers to compete under the state's Natural Gas Competition and Deregulation Act.

Under the standards, candidates must show their creditworthiness. To compete, a marketer must prove that its capital base or other financial resources can withstand the business and financial risk and absorb losses that might occur in providing firm gas service to retail customers.

S.B. 215, which was signed into law in April, established a regulatory framework to deregulate the gas industry.

CalEnergy Company Inc. subsidiary CE Electric Inc. in mid-July appeared poised to take over New York State Electric & Gas Corp. But NYSEG fought the hostile takeover and won.

Although NYSEG had asked the New York Public Service Commission and the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York to intervene, in the end, CalEnergy cited "lack of shareholder support" as its reason for terminating its bid.

A takeover attempt. CalEnergy Company Inc.

Follow the arrows as California's direct access workshops map out who will have access to electric customer data.

In its latest order implementing direct access for electric customers, the California Public Utilities Commission told Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric to conduct workshops to recommend rules on the release of customer information in a deregulated electric industry.

The PUC offered guidelines.

My electric company, Potomac Electric Power Co., has announced a joint venture with RCN Corp. of Princeton, N.J., to offer local and long-distance telephone service to callers in Washington, D.C., and nearby areas, plus cable television and high-speed connections to the Internet. With stockholder money, PEPCO would compete head-on against Bell Atlantic, which won approval from the Federal Communications Commission on Aug. 14 for its $25-billion merger with NYNEX.

Reporting the story, The Washington Post quoted PEPCO President John M.

In aiming to make financial statements more meaningful, will FASB instead make them indecipherable?

By mid-summer, a total of 123 companies had cranked out some 574 pages of comments, detailing exactly what they thought of the accounting rules proposed by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to cover the closure or removal of certain long-lived assets. %n1%n The FASB's"Exposure Draft," issued early last year, had requested comments on eight issues. The respondents answered as requested, but also raised a host of new questions.

In union circles, they call it "burial insurance." That apt phrase denotes the severance, early retirement and re-training packages negotiated for veteran utility workers sideswiped by a changing market.

So far, labor has won some insurance: through legislation in California and in Maine; through a commission order in Massachusetts; and a pending settlement agreement in New York City, prompted by a commission order.

Labor lost hard in Pennsylvania and in Rhode Island, however. Worker protections weren't built into restructuring decisions in those states.

The Alabama Public Service Commission has formally requested that state law enforcement officials prosecute a reseller of telecommunications services for ongoing incidents of "deceptive and misleading" marketing activities.

The so-called "slamming" practices include switching customers without documenting their consent. Earlier in the year, the commission had found that Long Distance Services Inc. had engaged in a series of improper practices, including the use of sweepstake boxes, to sign up new customers to its service without proper consent.

The New York Public Service Commission has directed Consolidated Edison Co. to modify its gas transportation rates to more accurately reflect costs.

The commission said that the tariff revisions mark a "major step" for a service territory where competition between the utility and gas marketers had not yet developed.

Regulators in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have taken steps to address relationships between natural gas utilities, customers, marketers and brokers operating in their respective states, announcing policies to cover such topics as fitness requirements, marketing practices and consumer protection.

One question that continues to raise concern is price arbitrage by marketers during supply emergencies that might affect service to captive residential customers.

Pennsylvania.