It's a law that only a mother could love.

It's tough to write another word about repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act (PUHCA), or the "35 Act," as it is also known, referring to its Depression-era origins. But like the Energizer bunny, this debate keeps on going and going.

It's almost 70 years later, and the issue has outlived several generations of utility executives, regulators, lawyers, bankers, academics, and a few magazine editors. Heck, it may outlive us all.

DCF Utility Valuation: Still the Gold Standard?

 

 

State PUCs Show Split Personality

 

 

While electric restructuring pauses, telecom pushes forward.

No matter which way they turn, state public utility commissions (PUCs) have their work cut out for them.

While federal policy-makers push ahead with wholesale market reforms in the electricity sector, many at the state level now call for a cautious approach to protect consumers.

The sound and fury over trading scandals, credit defaults, and market manipulation so far has drowned out much of the mind-numbing debate over a standard market design (SMD), and rightly so. Utilities understand (as does the press) that Enron, "Deathstar," and "Get Shorty" will always sell more newspapers than locational pricing or congestion management.

 

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