federal-state tensions currently affecting energy regulatory policy in America.
Sen.
argues that the Iowa price is more than twice what federal law imposes under a market-based rate. MPS and the three other investor-owned utilities (IOUs) in Iowa had asked the state legislature earlier this year to make the Iowa law conform to federal law, but the bill was not passed.
Last Spring I heard superintendent William "Billy" Ray tell how the folks down home at his Glasgow, KY, municipal utility took a flier on the information superhighway. They gambled and won by constructing a new utility-owned cable television system to offer competitive TV service to their municipal electric customers.
On a purely intellectual level, it is difficult to justify the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA). Sixty years after passage, PUHCA has become an anachronism (em a fact well articulated in comments filed in response to the Concept Release on the modernization of the Act issued last November by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).1 More recently, the SEC's Division of Investment Management actually recommended a conditional repeal (see sidebar).
One need only reflect upon the primary sponsors of current efforts to repeal section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) to begin to understand the folly of these efforts for the nation. The sponsors do not represent electricity ratepayers, who are claimed to be overpaying billions of dollars as a result of PURPA.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has upheld its February 22 ruling that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) violated federal law by not considering all electric power sources in determining the avoided costs of electric utilities (Docket Nos. EL95-16-001 and EL95-19-001). A unanimous FERC had found the CPUC's Biennial Resource Plan Update auction in violation of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA).
ER94-1288-004).
WRTA had received conditional approval last October, but members were directed to provide comparable electric transmission service and file a single, regional transmission plan.
For the first time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has directed a power pool, the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland (PJM) Power Pool, to provide electric transmission services to an electric utility, Duquesne Light Co. (Docket Nos. TX94-10-000 and TX94-8-000). It gave PJM 70 days to negotiate rates and terms with Duquesne, which had asked for transmission service to market excess capacity and energy. The FERC ordered the 11 members of the pool to negotiate jointly with Duquesne, and to charge comparable rates.
On June 6 the Energy Production and Regulation Subcommittee of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK), held a hearing on legislation S. 708, The Electric Utility Ratepayer Act, which would repeal section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA), which mandates purchases from qualifying facilities (QFs) at avoided-cost rates.
The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) has completed a series of workshops on what it calls "electronic information systems" (EINs). The NERC workshops were held in response to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) "Mega-NOPR" of March 29, which contemplates opening the wholesale electric industry to competition.