Names Differ, Pray Tell
Steve Mitnick has authored five books on the economics, history, and people of the utilities industries. While in the consulting practice leadership of McKinsey & Co. and Marsh & McLennan, he advised utility leaders. He led a transmission development company and was a New York Governor’s chief energy advisor. Mitnick was an expert witness appearing before utility regulatory commissions of six states, D.C., FERC, and in Canada, and taught microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics at Georgetown University.
A Rose by Any Other Name
Commission Names Differ, Pray Tell
By Steve Mitnick, Executive Editor
In Romeo and Juliet,
By Shakespeare
The playwright and poet,
The question came,
What’s in a name?
Because it’s called
the Public Service Commission
In Louisiana,
The same in Montana,
And in South Carolina.
Let’s keep up this game,
It’s the Corporation Commission
In Arizona,
The Utility Regulatory Commission
In Indiana,
The Regulatory Commission
In Alaska,
And the Utilities Commission
In North Carolina.
Back to that more common name,
The Public Service Commission
In Florida,
As well as in Nebraska,
And in North Dakota.
But it’s the Public Utilities Commission
In Minnesota,
And in South Dakota,
And Nevada.
Oh, then there’s the
Public Utilities Commission
In Colorado,
And in Idaho,
And Ohio.
Yet they call it the
Public Regulation Commission
In New Mexico.
It’s the Public Utilities Commission
In California,
But Utilities becomes singular,
For the Public Utility Commission
In Pennsylvania.
Then there’s the
Public Service Commission
In Georgia,
And in West Virginia.
While they call it the
State Corporation Commission
In Virginia.
It’s the Public Service Commission
In Mississippi,
In Missouri,
And in Kentucky,
And Wyoming.
But the Public Utilities Commission
In Hawaii,
And again, Utilities becomes singular
For the Public Utility Commission
In Tennessee.
See?
Whether it’s a PSC or PUC,
As the Bard claimed,
That which we in utility regulation,
Call a rose,
By any other name,
Would smell as sweet.
