FERC

Vicky A. Bailey, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has left the FERC to serve as president of Cinergy Corp.'s PSI Energy Inc. unit in Indiana. Bailey served on the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission before joining FERC in 1993.

Janet Gail Besser, chair of the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy for two years and a board member since 1995, resigned in December. She was to join consultant Lexecon Inc. in March.

SEMCO ENERGY Inc. named Barrett Hatches president of ENSTAR Natural Gas Co. He succeeds Richard Barnes.

How 165 lawyers were mostly on the wrong side in the biggest electric merger to date.

With Warren Buffet buying up MidAmerican Energy as his own personal utility, and Bill Gates taking a stake in Avista, the standard electric merger starts to look tame.

For that and other reasons, I believe it's all but certain that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will soon OK the electric industry's biggest-ever merger, combining American Electric Power Co. with Central and South West Corp.

California has a plan to track green electricity, but can it be trusted?

All electricity is the same, but the California Energy Commission wants to change that. It plans a system to authenticate the source of electricity to allow consumers to buy power from specific generators. Standard documents called "Certificates of Specific Generation" would certify financial transactions. Presumably, the plan would help document the authenticity of non-generic electricity products, such as green power.

Agency moves ahead despite ruling that Clean Air Act is unconstitutional.

By granting petitions filed by four Northeastern states seeking to reduce ozone pollution in their geographic areas through reductions in nitrogen oxide emission (NOx) from out-of-state sources, along with other initiatives, the Environmental Protection Agency on Dec. 17 began to clean the regulatory air that has grown murky as of late.

Some in California say they will pay double - once to the ISO, then again to the IOU.

What if power prices fall but the savings get eaten up by higher transmission rates? Let's say we unbundle the wires, but end up creating just another layer of costs? We pay the independent system operator (ISO) to run the grid, but the investor-owned utility (IOU) still owns the wires. It has its own costs to recover. So now we pay two bills, right?

The issue is troublesome for California's electric utilities and a quagmire for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. In a new tariff it filed on Nov.

Why not use the Web to buy and sell transmission rights at prices derived from bids and offers?

You make an offer, I accept. You deliver a product, I deliver money. This simple construct works well in just about any industry you can name. When a willing buyer and seller negotiate a contract, each achieves an outcome he considers best. Moreover, each is obliged to meet the needs of the other - reliably. No central authority sets the price or allocates supply. We depend on markets for reliable production and delivery of other essential goods; why not for electricity?

How the FERC risks a free-for-all in cases for gas facility authorization.

By final rule, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has adopted a new optional process for applicants seeking a pipeline certificate or gas import/export authority under the Natural Gas Act to construct, operate or abandon a jurisdictional facility.[Fn.1] It's known as the Pre-Filing Collaborative Process, or PFCP, but it means trouble.

In seeking to speed up administrative review, the FERC has only invited delay.

State PUCs

T+D Investment Risk. The Maine PUC appeared to take a pro-consumer stance in setting principles it will use to set a revenue requirement for transmission and distribution (T&D) services provided by Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. after the company becomes a wires-only utility on March 1. The PUC downplayed the risk of wires operations, adopting a return on equity of 11 percent and disallowing about $3.5 million of some $71 million in claimed T&D costs.

Carmen Ana Cintron was named an administrative law judge at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Cintron previously served as Hearing Office chief administrative law judge in the Office of Hearings and Appeals of the Social Security Administration in Chamblee, Ga.

Unicom Corp. appointed Elizabeth Anne "Betsy" Moler senior vice president for federal government affairs. Moler, an attorney in private practice in Washington, D.C., is a former FERC chair. Upon completion of Unicom's merger with PECO Energy, she will head the combined company's Washington office.

Nevada Gov.

Having now passed a rule that takes very few chances, the FERC must decide what's in store for investors.

Whatever happened to the Sunshine Act - the law that tells government officials to hold their meetings in the open?

That's what all of us in the trade press wanted to know on Dec. 15, when Chairman James Hoecker kept us waiting all morning and well into the afternoon, while he and his cohorts at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission debated in secret on the ninth floor over the future of the electric utility industry.