DC

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved a performance-based gas-purchasing plan for Minnegasco, a natural gas local distribution company (LDC).

The incentive plan contains two benchmarks for measuring the utility's gas-purchasing performance: 1) a market-based benchmark with demand and commodity components, and 2) a comparison benchmark consisting of a volume-weighted, average, total annual gas cost per million British thermal units for the state's three largest LDCs (after Minnegasco itself).

The Minnesota Supreme Court has overturned a decision of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to impute revenues while setting rates for Minnegasco (em a division of Noram Energy Corp. and a natural gas local distribution company (LDC) (em in order to compensate ratepayers for the value of corporate goodwill enjoyed by an affiliated customer appliance business. (The state Court of Appeals had upheld the PUC in a 1995 ruling. See Minnegasco, a Division of Noram Energy Corp. v. Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, 529 N.W.sd 413, 160 PUR4th 453 (Minn. Ct. App.

Utilities in two states have taken steps to exert tighter control over meter-reading services.

The Michigan

Public Service Commission (PSC) has authorized Consumers Power Co., a local distribution company (LDC), to revise its operating rules governing centrally metered service installations.

Sound bites from state and federal regulators.

Metering and Service Termination. Pennsylvania proposes two new meter-testing formats for LDCs: 1) a statistical sampling method that categorizes meters based on technology, design, manufacture, model, and operating characteristics; and 2) a variable interval approach that ties the retirement rate for a meter category to level of accuracy. Docket No. L-00960116, Mar. 28, 1996 (Pa.P.U.C.).

In telecommunications, regulators turn increasingly to the nebulous term known as "cost-based" to set pricing policy. An example is the new Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Act), whose pricing standards for interconnection and network element charges stipulate that the just and reasonable rate for the interconnection of facilities and equipment should be "based on the cost ...

Two Companies,

Two StrategiesThe question is whether to own or lease,

but each route offers its own advantages.

With deregulation nipping at their heels, utilities are looking for ways to gain and maintain

customers. Aggressive utilities are seeking new customers outside of their service territories and offering competitive prices, new products, and new services.

in energy service companies to boost earnings beyond the normal growth rate?Going on the "defensive-offensive."

In the early 1990s, flush with utility money from its corporate parent, Entergy Systems and Service, Inc. began expanding to provide competitive energy services.

Labor got on well with monopoly.

But now, if experience is any guide,

expect a stiff fight for benefits, jobs, and wages.

At this very moment, utility chief executive officers (CEOs) are planning for the future.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has authorized Intermountain Gas Co., a local distribution company (LDC), to implement a new interruptible-distribution transportation service for large-volume industrial customers, including a charge designed to minimize stranded costs associated with migration of customers from sales tariffs.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has rejected claims that Washington Energy Co., corporate parent of Washington Gas Co., a local distribution company (LDC), committed securities fraud by failing to fully explain that its current application for a rate increase was based in part on expense requests and accounting methods rejected by state regulators in the past.