Bucking the current trend among state utility regulators, the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (URC) has denied a request by Northern Indiana Public Service Co., a natural gas local distribution company (LDC), to retain a portion of the revenues it receives from pipeline capacity-release transactions. The LDC asked the URC to permit shareholders to retain 50 percent of the revenues gained from participation in the "secondary market" for interstate pipeline capacity instead of flowing them back to ratepayers through the quarterly gas-cost adjustment (GCA) mechanism.

The New York Public Service Commission (PSC) has ordered New York Telephone Co., a telecommunications local exchange carrier (LEC), to notify customers that they may now choose an alternative carrier for intraLATA toll calling. Interexchange carriers (IXCs) in the state had complained about the LEC's plans to implement a recent PSC order requiring equal access for intraLATA toll services.

The Iowa Utilities Board (IUB) has permitted MidAmerican Energy Co. (em the corporate parent of recently merged Midwest Gas and Iowa-Illinois Electric and Gas Co. (em to include combined gas-procurement performance data as part of an experimental gas-supply incentive program originally designed for MidWest Gas alone. The IUB rejected a proposal to terminate the program and consider separate programs for the companies, finding an artificial separation of the performance data of the now-combined gas-supply departments unproductive.

The Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission (UTC) has turned back a pre-merger attempt by Puget Sound Power and Light Co. to make permanent a $165.5-million rate increase allowed under its periodic rate adjustment mechanism (PRAM). (The PRAM is designed to remove disincentives to utility conservation efforts by "decoupling" revenues from sales levels and relying instead on a revenue-per-customer approach to cost recovery.) Puget had earlier agreed to defer a scheduled base-rate filing pending the UTC's review of its proposed merger with Washington Energy Co.

Fee Simple? Utility Board Directors Get Less Than Peers

How do fees for utility board directors match up to those at other companies? Not too shabbily, as the following data show, but on the whole more modestly.

The Spencer Stuart SSBI Survey traced Board trends, based on proxy data, at 100 of the nation's leading publicly held corporations. The companion UI Survey focused on Board compensation at the 50 largest publicly owned utilities.

To what extent should regulation yield to market forces in setting wholesale electric prices? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) posed this question when it sought comments on whether open transmission access would eliminate the need for anything like traditional rate regulation.

The merger voltage (I) is rising on the electric grid, but it remains to be seen which will win out: current (E) policy or resistance (R) to it.

Anyone on the East Coast can tell you a good snow story this winter. Like when I looked out my front window one morning and saw a four-wheel-drive utility vehicle get stuck in the middle of my street in downtown Washington. After spinning his wheels for a while, the driver got out and began walking toward Connecticut Avenue, a main DC thoroughfare.

The driver soon returned, carrying a fresh, steaming cafe latte from Starbucks in each gloved hand. He opened the door, climbed in, and gave one cup to his passenger.