Hardly at all. In fact, they do little more than reapportion income (em a task that lies outside the FCC's mandate.

The Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service recently proposed to expand subsidy programs for Lifeline telephone service. Under the Telecommunications Act of 1996, the Joint Board seeks to add more low-income households to the telephone network.

Will such a strategy work? Our recent findings suggest not. They indicate that simple continuance of such programs, much less expansion, is a highly questionable proposition.

Introduced in the 105th Congress

• H.R. 296, sponsored by John Shadegg (R-Ariz.). Would privatize the federal Power Marketing Administrations, splitting them into regional corporations to market and maintain generation and transmission services. Stock would be sold to recover outstanding federal debt; holding companies could invest in the corporations.

• H.R. 338, sponsored by Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.). Would repeal Section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) of 1978, but would force utilities to honor QF contracts entered prior to Jan.

s The technology is digital.

s The medium is cyberspace. The product is a strategic system for billing, collection and customer services (BCCS) that integrates knowledge and choice through an automated customer interface.

The impending obliteration of the business boundaries between the gas, electric and other energy industries will launch a series of convergent waves of change. Executives, regulators, legislators, investors and, naturally, consumers must ride this wave over the next 10 to 15 years.

"It's going to take a lost of time to understand all the pies."

It's almost spring. There's a new energy secretary(emisn't there? And at least for new electric restructuring bills in Congress. Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska) is chairing "workshops" on deregulation at the Energy and Natural Resources committee.

Everyone's wondering: Which bill take hold? Where will it be and how will it look by the end of the legislative session: dead, alive, or limp?

A control area is like an airport (em too many planes, not enough runways.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, AUGUST 21, 1996 - 8:35 A.M.

On Saturday, Aug. 10, 1996, a power outage left more than 4 million Californians without electricity, prompting the California Public Utilities Commission to conduct emergency hearings. Witnesses appeared from electric utilities and a host of federal and state agencies, including the Bonneville Power Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Western Systems Coordinating Council.

A New York supreme court (Albany county) has affirmed a May 1996 order by state public service commission to restructure the state's electric utility industry, upholding PSC's "flexible retail poolco" model and authority to direct utilities to file plans for further review.

The court ruled that the PSC may deregulate generation and compel separation of generation, wires, and energy marketing functions. Moreover, the PSC need not guarantee 100-percent recovery of stranded costs, says court, but may "encourage" utilities to divest themselves of generating assets.

Concerned that competition in the natural gas market might affect reliability of gas supply for core customers, the New York Public Service Commission has adopted new short-term curtailment procedures for the states natural gas local distribution companies.

According to the commission, the new procedures "recognize the restructured natural gas industry," and require that in the event of short-term interruptions or force majeure curtailment situations, the needs of core customers are met first.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Portland General Electric Co., could not invoke "state action immunity" as protection against antitrust charges in a case involving the division of the Portland, Ore., market into exclusive service territories.

Columbia Steel Casting Co., a large industrial consumer of electric power in the city, had sued Portland General and another local utility, Pacific Power & Light Co., charging both companies with dividing the city's electric users among them in violation of federal antitrust laws.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission has adopted a schedule of environmental costs for electric utilities evaluating and selecting resource options in all commission proceedings including resource-plan and certificate-of-need cases.

In each such case the utilities will be required to provide three cost analyses for each generation-option provided: one using the values at the low end of the range (see table), one using values at the high end of the range, and one reflecting "direct costs only" (i.e., using zero environmental externalities values).

Table.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission has allowed Idaho Power Co. to terminate an "industrial efficiency" conservation program designed to promote the installation of energy efficient equipment by both industrial and large commercial users through the use of grants awarded by the utility.

The commission found that the way to implement such goals is changing in light of electric industry restructuring, while declaring its continuing support for utility investment in conservation and renewable-based resources.