636 Implementation by LDCs-Interaction with State Commissions

✍ Scribed by Smith, William H.

• Book ID: 102219298
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Weight: 315 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0743-5665
• DOI: 10.1002/gas.3410100106

✦ Synopsis

A turing plans, LDCs are discovering that their operations are affected in more ways than anyone imagined when Order 636 was issued just over a year ago.

State regulators should be watching how LDCs are reacting to the opportunities, challenges, and headaches of restructuring. There may be actions that state commissions can take that will improve the restructuring process itself, mitigate some of its harmful effects, and bring its benefits to retail customers.

Hard or Soft Forum?

I will review some of the particular issues a state commission should explore. But first it is worth looking at the degree of formality that the commission should attach. to the process by which it gains its information about restructuring. Commissions can choose to receive information in a number of ways.

At one end of the spectrum are informal briefrngs or "working group" sessions in which the emphasis is on exchange of information rather than on laying the basis for a regulatory decision. This kind of soft forum, without a formal record, allows participants more freedom to present conflicting information about their options, to explain