Commission

So the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) won't break up the electric utility industry. But it may happen anyway (em if not at the FERC's direction, then perhaps under pressure from state regulators who, some say, are threatening to link stranded-cost recovery to vertical disaggregation.

What would a breakup mean for bonds and bondholders?

As we reported last month ("New Corporate Structures Place Bondholders at Risk," May 1, 1996, p.

The prospect of deregulation has induced a wave of mergers among electric utilities. Most of these mergers would fail an antitrust review because, by combining generation assets of interconnected utilities, they have substantially reduced potential competition in generation.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved amendments to existing rules governing ex parte and other communications designed to influence the decisionmaking process in adjudicatory proceedings.

It found the changes necessary after representatives of New England Telephone and Telegraph Co. dba NYNEX, a local exchange carrier (LEC) regulated by the PUC, were reported engaged in lobbying activities.

The Michigan Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved a request for certification of plans by CMS Generation Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of CMS Energy Co., to acquire an interest in an electric power supplier in Australia, as part of that country's privatization program.

According to CMS Generation, the project will remain a "totally separate entity" from the corporate parent and its principal subsidiary, Consumers Power Co.

The Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved a plan by which shareholders of Providence Gas Co., a natural gas local distribution company (LDC), will fund existing low-income assistance programs. The PUC approved the plan as part of settlement agreement in a case involving a new integrated resource plan (IRP) for the LDC.

Funds for the low-income assistance programs will come from gas-cost savings earned by the LDC under new performance-based IRP reforms approved by the PUC.

The Montana Public Service Commission (PSC) has authorized Montana Power Co. (a combined electric and natural gas utility), to increase base rates for gas distribution by $3.01 million, subject to refund.

The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) has decided to review its experimental "Open Market Plan" to introduce competition to the local telephone market in the Rochester, NY area.

In opening its investigation of electric utility restructuring, the Utah Public Service Commission (PSC) has begun by directing PacifiCorp to submit a legal analysis of the "cost-based standard" for ratemaking, as enunciated two years ago in a state supreme court opinion.

In 1994, the court had overturned an incentive regulation plan OK'd by the PSC for a local exchange telephone carrier because it ignored statutory cost-of-service principles.

The New England Electric System (NEES) has filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission for authority to separate

generation and transmission, and to create a

transmission subsidiary called NEES Transmission Services, Inc. NEES Transmission has filed proposed transmission tariffs at the FERC that would give its wholesale customers, including New England Power Co.