Enormous change looms for utilities

[salin]

Enormous change looms for utilities

A 1935 law designed to thwart fraud in the power industry appears doomed.
By David Whitney -- Bee Washington Bureau
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Sunday, September 14, 2003
WASHINGTON -- As negotiations intensify between the House of Representatives and Senate over energy legislation, the skies are growing ever darker over a 7-decade-old law whose purpose was to keep the utility business free from greedy and predatory practices.
While there is much that the House and Senate still must resolve if a deal on the sweeping energy package is to be reached, an issue that's not in dispute is that the 1935 Public Utility Holding Company Act is history.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which enforces the law, thinks it should go. The House and Senate have voted to ditch it. And many think the chief reason the Bush administration wants an electricity provision in the energy bill, which deals with oil and gas development and incentives for a new generation of nuclear power, is because holding companies with no experience in the business will be freed to buy cash-rich utilities.

"PUHCA is a long-standing barrier to capital investment in the utility industry, the creation of independent regional transmission companies and the entry of additional players in wholesale and retail electricity markets," David Owens, executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, told Congress in March. The institute is a trade association for investor-owned power companies.

more: http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/7414685p-8357866c.html