Lawyers for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Feb. 4 argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Court that their client should not be made to pay $6 million to Cambridge Electric Light Co. to cover stranded costs for building its own $50 million on-campus generating plant, as directed by the state utility commission. MIT said it would never have built the plant had it known about the fee. A ruling is expected in the spring.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission has refused to issue its 1996 report card of the state's electric, telephone, natural gas and water utilities. The reports usually are issued on an annual basis to little fanfare, but with the advent of varying degrees of competition, the commissioners have disagreed over the amount of performance information that should be released.

According to an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, the controversy began when PUC Commissioner Robert Bloom wanted sections of the report removed that could cause discomfort to some utilities.

Oklahoma State Senator Kevin Easley (D) has introduced two bills to the state Legislature. The first bill would introduce competition to the electric utility industry. The second bill would revamp the Oklahoma regulatory commission.

Senate Bill 500, the "Electric Restructuring Act," would allow some consumers to choose their electric suppliers by 1999. All consumers would be able to choose soon thereafter. The measure also calls for the Oklahoma Tax Commission to assess the impact of restructuring on state tax revenues and the feasibility of establishing a uniform consumption tax.

The New York Public Service Commission on Feb. 12 pushed toward competition by approving a multi-utility pilot program for electric retail access for commercial farms and food processors, and by allowing utilities to use their flexible-rate programs to compete against economic-development power offered by the New York Power Authority (Docket 97012/94EO385).

The Dairylea farming cooperative had asked the commission to approve a pilot open to commercial farms and food processors, except those that already have flexible rate contracts. The PSC agreed.

North Carolina and South Carolina, both relatively low-cost power states, recently have made moves toward competition. In North Carolina, bills calling for the formation of a study commission to examine the introduction of electric supplier choice in that state were introduced in the House (H.B. 12) and Senate (S.B. 38). The intent to introduce choice has prompted the North Carolina Coalition for Customer Choice in Electricity to call on legislators to develop a report by April 1998, in time for a bill to be considered by the General Assembly that same year.

After months of trying, which included the derailment by Western Resources of the proposed merger of UtiliCorp United and Kansas City Power & Light Co., the boards of directors of Western Resources and Kansas City P&L have approved a merger of the two companies in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $2 billion. If approved by the necessary regulatory authorities, the new company would have $9.5 billion in assets, $3 billion in annual revenues and more than 8,000 MW of electric generation.

XENERGY Inc. and the Electric Power-Research Institute will team up in a second phase of a retail-wheeling pilot program study. The expanded study will include California, Massachusetts, Illinois and New York. Competitors, market share and sales strategies will be assessed. XENERGY first started the survey in July 1996. More than 40 utilities sponsored the research. The first phase focused mostly on New Hampshire, but also targeted electricity deregulation in the 50 states. Phase two, focusing on commercial-industrial customers, ends June 1997.

As the U.S. Congress works to pass federal legislation introducing competition into the electric utility industry, one of the most divisive issues regulators and policymakers must grapple with is that of stranded cost. In a recent study completed by Resource Data International, we have found that an important issue will be how "negative" stranded costs are handled.

At the heart of our study is a detailed, plant-by-plant, analysis of stranded costs for every utility in the country. We estimate that the total above-market stranded cost nationally is $202 billion.

Former Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) has joined the PacifiCorp board of directors. Simpson retired from the Senate earlier this year after serving three terms. Also at PacifiCorp, Dennis Steinberg, a senior v.p., was named head of global energy sales, marketing and trading. John Bohling, another senior v.p., will direct customer service, among other activities. Mike Henderson will head a new group for international business, technology and planning.

John M. Deutch has returned as a member of the CMS Energy Corp. Board of Directors. Deutch served on the board from 1986 to 1993.

Two months ago in this space, I interviewed a power marketer and an independent power producer who sit on the operating and engineering committees of the North American Electric Reliability Council. What did they think of NERC, a group formed to prevent large-scale power outages and made up largely of volunteers from investor-owned electric utilities? Were they treated fairly? Did they have a chance to influence policy?

In general, my two "outsiders" felt satisfied with their status on the committees, though some skepticism emerged about NERC's internal decision-making process.