According to the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition (em a national organization of local natural gas distributors, pipelines, and equipment manufacturers promoting natural gas vehicles (NGVs) (em the U.S. government supports our country's continued reliance on petroleum-based fuels for transportation through billions in subsidies and tax incentives.

The financial community's focus on utility competition has been riveted on the proceedings now in progress at state regulatory commissions. The fear that something immediately damaging will come out of these proceedings seems to have diminished in recent months, and the stock market has reacted favorably. However, regulatory developments are only one of four paths leading to competition; the others are the marketplace, the legislatures, and the courts.

As required under a conditional approval order issued in October, the Western Regional Transmission Association (WRTA) has filed its compliance agreement at the FERC (Docket No. ER94-1288-000). WRTA agrees to provide comparable transmission service, and has filed a transmission plan that gives individual members the right to make the final decisions on whether transmission facilities are built. WRTA has 31 members (em utilities, state agencies, and independent power producers (IPPs) (em that represent 70 percent of the transmission capabilities in the western United States.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved a final rule on charges and fees for hydroelectric projects. Annual charges will now be assessed beginning on the date construction starts rather than when a license is issued (Docket No. RM-93-7-000). The rule eliminates annual charges for minor licensees (em projects of 1.5 megawatts or less (em and caps annual charges at two percent of total costs incurred by the FERC. To update its regulation, the FERC also substituted kilowatts for horsepower to determine capacity.

The Independent Energy Producers (IEP), a Sacramento-based independent energy advocacy group, has announced that it will petition for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to reconsider its ruling that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) violated the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) by requiring two utilities to purchase power at above avoided costs (FERC Docket Nos. EL95-16-000 and EL95-19-000).

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded 1,349 acid rain bonus allowances to 10 utilities: City of Austin; New York State Electric and Gas; Orange and Rockland; Western Massachusetts Electric; United Illuminating; Cincinnati Gas and Electric; Massachusetts Electric; Granite State Electric; Narragansett Electric; and Long Island Lighting. The awards are based on utility energy efficiency and use of renewable energy.

Pursuant to the acid rain requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, an allowance licenses the emission of one ton of sulfur dioxide (SO2).

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has set for hearing issues related to a proposed, open-access transmission tariff for point-to-point service in Citizens Utilities Co.'s (CU) Arizona service territory. It also approved CU's agreement requiring a transmission customer, Aha Macav Power Systems, Inc., to pay a $190,000 contribution in aid of construction (CIAC) to interconnect to CU's grid (Docket No.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has ruled that an Illinois statute did not require rates above avoided cost for wholesale sales by qualifying facilities (QFs), and so did not violate the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) (Docket No. EL95-27-000).

The statute at issue requires a utility to buy power from qualifying solid-waste energy facilities at the utility's retail rate. But the statute includes an offsetting monthly tax credit, which prevents a utility from paying more than its avoided costs.

MFS Communications Co. (MFS) has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to order monopoly local exchange carriers (LECs) to open access to the "local loop" for competitive telephone companies at a cost-based rate. The MFS "Open Loop Initiative" seeks to speed development of local telephone competition and to provide a choice of local carriers.

The local loop is that part of the local telephone network that physically connects the customer's premises to the LEC central office.

With the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (CAAA) come many complex decisions for electric utilities. By now the majority of utilities have decided how they will comply with the clean air guidelines and acid rain program limits, at least for Phase I. But for those utilities that have selected coal switching as the preferred method of complying with the law, the task gets more complicated. Burn expensive low-sulfur coal and bank or sell allowances? Or burn just enough low-sulfur coal to meet the rules, and no more?