hat great sage, Yogi Berra, advised, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." Here at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the end of 1999, we have reached a crossroads in regulation of the electric industry. On the basis of the trend I see, I have all of the confidence that, in the years to come, we will not only take the fork in the road, but we will take it correctly.
The major development in 1999 involved the regional transmission organization (RTO) initiative. FERC had the vision to implement a rule allowing for the development of regional transmission organizations that facilitate competitive electricity markets through a business model while providing flexibility to the future. FERC took a novel approach. We set out our objectives: efficiency and flexibility. Then we provided guidance on what we wanted RTOs to accomplish, but did not try to dictate how we wanted them to do it. As a result of this more business-like process, the movement toward restructuring and deregulation of the electric utility industry is gaining speed. Most important, Wall Street is seizing the opportunity to create a new organization, the transmission company, that looks to the market and profits from customer satisfac-