Bob Rowe of the Montana Public Service Commission was elected first vice president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners. Rowe will continue to serve as chairman of the NARUC Telecommunications Committee for another year.
Duane, Morris & Heckscher LLP added Regina Speed-Bost to its energy group. Speed-Bost is the former legal advisor for natural gas and oil pipeline matters to William L. Massey, commissioner, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Charles K.
Will inaction in the Senate and House prompt FERC to move ahead?
About 36 bills with the word "electric" in them were introduced in the 105th Congress. According to Capitol Hill and industry association staff, the 106th Congress, officially begun Jan. 6, appears likely to see fewer restructuring bills, but steadfast champions.
Likelier still are developments outside of Congress that will shape energy policy and perhaps beat legislators to the punch.
State PUCs
Electric Retail Choice. The Arkansas Public Service Commission has issued its final report on electric restructuring, citing a "broad" consensus favoring competition. It predicts immediate benefits for industrial customers, but warns that residential users likely will not see any quick rate cut. The PSC saw competition as consistent with action in neighboring states:
• Oklahoma. State law mandates retail choice by July 1, 2002.
• Mississippi. PSC plan would phase-in competition from 2001 to 2004.
• Missouri.
The FERC's latest idea throws pipelines for a loop, with implications for power markets, too.
Transmission and distribution (em the business they call "pipes and wires" (em can't last much longer with rates set by cost of service. Contrary to the myth, these services deserve no special status due to their high embedded costs. They carry no intrinsic value apart from the electrons and molecules they deliver.
We are the world's experts on contingencies," boasted Michehl Ghent, president of the North American Electric Reliability Council, appearing in Houston on Sept. 17 at the Sixth Annual DOE/NARUC Electricity Forum. It was the very day day that NERC released its first comprehensive report on readiness in the electric utility industry in correcting computer software problems associated with the dawning the next century, which for the first time will require computers, software programs and embedded chips to the use four digits to identify the year beginning with turnover from 1999 to 2000.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) President Jolynn Barry Butler appointed Maureen O. Helmer, chairman of the New York Public Service Commission, to serve on the NARUC Committee on Electricity. As a member of the committee, Helmer will work with other state commissioners to develop policy positions.
Steven M. Nagy joined Detroit Edison as manager, supply chain and procurement. Nagy comes to Detroit Edison from Huntsville Electronics, the electronics division of Chrysler Corp., where he served as the division's manufacturing operations manager.
MARKING THE FIRST CASE of a voluntary agreement in a region not previously organized as a tight power pool, or compelled to act by state legislation, a group of 10 operating electric utilities won approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on September 16 to form the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, Inc., which will take over operational control of certain defined jurisdictional transmission facilities, provided that it complies with conditions imposed by the FERC.
"THESE ARE THE DOG DAYS OF DEREGULATION." That's how Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman James Hoecker put it last month in Houston at his luncheon talk at the Sixth DOE/NARUC National Electricity Forum. He bemoaned the "evidence of delay" in restructuring that now "clearly exists."
Don't be fooled. What Hoecker has up his sleeve is nothing less than a full-scale overhaul of FERC Orders 888 and 889.
FORCING A DIVESTITURE SHOULD REMAIN AN OPTION for regulators in a clear case of market power abuse, NARUC members have agreed.
NARUC's executive committee also has opened discussion on a five-year business plan that would increase the association's visibility, improve its technology and make better use of the $10 million it has in reserves.
Members at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners summer meetings in Seattle, Wash., asked states to give them "clear and adequate authority" to protect consumers from market power.
No one has yet explained why the electric industry needs independent system operators to manage the transmission grid and a private institution to do essentially the same thing.
That question remains unanswered even now that the North American Electric Reliability Council has released its draft legislation showing how it would recreate itself as NAERO, a self-regulating electric reliability organization insulated from antitrust scrutiny by governmental oversight.
"Reliability does not exist in a vacuum," noted P.R.H. Landrieu, v.p.