Fortnightly Magazine - September 15 1996

A recent ruling by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) has directed Public Service Electric and Gas Co., to show that customers will be better off under the company's newly proposed program for alternative regulation (the "New Jersey Partners in Power Plan"), than under traditional regulation.

Nevertheless, the BPU declined to set a rate base or rate of return to establish a starting point for rates under the new proposed plan.

The North Carolina Utilities Commission (NCUC) has rejected a request by Duke Power Co. to recover as a cost of fuel some 90 percent of the price of bulk power purchased from Enron Power Marketing, Inc.

Instead, it allowed Duke to recover only 59 percent Enron purchases, the level of fuel costs Enron could verify by directly contacting the generating utilities. Nevertheless, it said it would not accept "hearsay" evidence on the share of costs attributable to fuel.

Two recent decisions from Hawaii and Michigan illustrate some of the issues now arising on the question of resale of telephone service by local exchange carriers (LECs).

In Michigan, the state public service commission has directed the state's LECs to offer all basic local exchange services for resale in a nondiscriminatory manner to competitors and affiliates at wholesale rates. It defined "wholesale rates" as retail rates less the avoided costs to the LEC.

The North Dakota Public Service Commission (PSC) has approved the Primergy merger between Northern States Power Co. and Wisconsin Energy Corp.

As an important factor in its decision, the commission noted that after the merger, Primergy plans to reduce North Dakota electric rates by 1.5 percent and gas rates by 1.25 percent, with a moratorium on increases until 2001.