Legislature(1997 - 1998)
08/06/1998 10:15 AM House EUR
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ELECTRIC UTILITY RESTRUCTURING
August 6, 1998
10:15 a.m.
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
ELECTRIC UTILITY RESTRUCTURING, TESTIMONY BY INVITATION ONLY
TAPE(S)
98-1, SIDES A & B
98-2, SIDES A & B
98-3, SIDES A & B
98-4, SIDES A & B
NOTE: These minutes were prepared by Co-Chairman Rokeberg's
staff.
CALL TO ORDER
Representative Norman Rokeberg, Co-Chairman, convened the Joint
Committee on Electric Utility Restructuring meeting at 10:15 a.m.
PRESENT
Committee members present at the call to order were Representatives
Rokeberg, Dyson and Davies; Senators Sharp and Leman.
Representative Austerman arrived as the meeting was in progress
(4:10 p.m.).
Also attending:
Dwight Ornquist, Commissioner, APUC; Lisa Ross, Birch-Horton; Bob
Lohr, Executive Director, APUC; Mary Ann Pease, Aurora Power; Bob
Price, ML&P; Ray Kreig, Chugach Electric; Hart Hodges, Phil Steyer,
Chugach Electric; Henry Lang, Lang Consulting; Donn Wonnell, ML&P;
Jim Patras, Dan Helmick, ML&P; John Rogers, Lori Kell, ML&P; Norman
Story, Homer Electric Association; Eric Yould, ARECA; Gene
Bjornstad, Chugach Electric; Donald Edwards, Chugach Electric;
Robert Hanson, Golden Valley; Jean von Dohrmann, Legislative
Consultants, Inc.; Mike Kelly, Golden Valley; Arthur Miller, Jerry
Delson, Applied Analytics Associates; Mr. Parker, ML&P; Meera
Kohler, ML&P; Bob Reagan, ML&P; Anne Hays, IBEW; Bruce Fergason,
AFSC/SFS; Robert Wilkinson, Copper Valley; Marilynn Semro, ML&P;
Debbie Reinwand, Bradley Reid; Mary Fisher, ARECA; Patricia Harper.
SUMMARY OF INFORMATION
OPENING REMARKS:
CO-CHAIR ROKEBERG: Called roll, do have a quorum to conduct
business. Thanked everyone for being in attendance. This is a
major and extraordinary issue that is facing our state, this
particular committee was put together by resolution of the last
legislature to make recommendations for the Twenty-First Alaska
State Legislature which I believe convenes on January 19, 1999.
Alaska is unique in that we are not connected to a national
electric grid. We are not unique in our desire for competitive
utility services and lowering the consumers' utility and electric
power bills as well as all other utilities. Many major issues are
facing this committee today. We'll complete this job as
expeditiously as possible. Not a simple issue as we all know. The
One Hundred and Fifth Congress will not be taking any action on
electrical restructuring on a nation wide basis during this
particular year. Alaska like many other states needs to deal with
this issue and "we" will do that. Main questions to be brought
forward to the committee and one of the major purposes of this
committee meeting today is to inform the committee members and
bring to the attention of the people of the State of Alaska the key
central issues on this particular topic. I am concerned about this
particular issue as ending up as a "zero sum" game, with losers and
winners, we need to be careful of this. Billions of public money
has been put into this and as much as 95% of the retail electrical
distribution in this state is consumer owned and not investor
owned. Is concerned about one large utility comes in and "cherry
picks" customers and leaves other utilities with only residential
and lower rate paying base. We need to follow the lead of other
states for example: Vermont, Maine, California and Michigan in
adopting the consumer electric rights "bill of rights" to protect
the individual consumers here if and when electrical restructuring
takes place here. Legislature needs to set the police and the APUC
is the regulator of that policy. Needs to formulate the policy
guidelines within any new statute that we bring forward.
CO-CHAIR SHARP: I would just like to add to what you said; my
desire is also to make sure that the electric customers in the
State of Alaska get the most economical source of power and the
most reliable source of power. That combination is what we want to
seek out. We have operated over the years with specific service
areas drafted by the APUC. This may be challenged severely by
allowing transfer or competition within those given service areas.
We need to search out where there have been successes in the Lower
48 concerning this exact situation; it has been very difficult to
find any successes yet. There is a lot of movement going on with
mergers and jockeying for position. The actual results are yet to
materialize. I'll be interested in getting that information and to
see where customers have benefited. Would like to see surplus
power made available at the most economical rates possible on the
wholesale level to "work" competition. With that, I am ready to
listen.
EUGENE BJORNSTAD, General Manager, Chugach Electric, see written
testimony in committee file.
ERIC YOULD, Executive Director, ARECA, see written testimony in
committee file.
DWIGHT ORNQUIST, Commissioner Alaska Public Utilities Commission,
BOB LOHR Executive Director Alaska Public Utilities Commission,
COMMISSIONER ORNQUIST spoke for Alaska Public Utilities Commission.
No written testimony submitted. Overview: Speaking off the cuff;
not necessarily APUC's goal to have competition but to provide good
services, make sure prices are low and efficiencies are high for
the people of Alaska. APUC historically has needed prodding in the
direction of competition. The state legislature prompted APUC's
involvement in telecommunications industry and has had federal
prodding into telecommunications. The concerns that consumers had
in telecommunications industry deregulation are the same for the
electrical industry: prices going up for individual and small
customers, cherry picking. Actually, prices have gone down because
of competition. Does not feel that competition or regulation is
panacea for the utility industry. When you have a monopoly you
have need for the APUC as a moderator/regulator for this monopoly.
Buying and selling electricity lends itself to competition not
monopoly, but APUC still needed to oversee that competition is fair
and customer is protected. APUC docket is open on electric
industry restructuring. Commissioner Ornquist is Docket Manager
and has contacted utility companies to begin moving forward. APUC
has a plan to do a third party study; APUC would fund this study,
but is not sure how long it will take to complete. The selection
process to choose a company to complete this study could take 90 to
120 days. This study would help to figure out what works and what
does not. Or another alternative that APUC is leaning towards is
a symposium of sorts, with legislative, regulatory, and industry
officials and participants, to bring up experts in the field, get
all the information, balance out information, see how it applies to
Alaska, weigh pros and cons, make a plan and implement. APUC views
themselves as a creature of the legislature, legislature gives APUC
direction in their statutes. Implements Legislative instructions.
APUC wants to be legislative resource; APUC wants to make sure the
legislature's direction that has been established is the direction
that we are moving.
MEERA KOHLER, General Manager, Municipal Light and Power, DONN
WONNELL, Attorney/Municipal Light and Power, DONN WONNELL spoke for
Municipal Light and Power, see written testimony in committee file.
BRUCE SCOTT, Consumer Relations, Matanuska Electric Association,
see written testimony in committee file.
MIKE KELLY, President and Chief Executive Officer, Golden Valley
Electric Association, see written testimony in committee file.
MARY ANN PEASE, Vice President, Aurora Power, see written testimony
in committee file.
GARY BROOKS, Business Manager, IBEW, no written testimony.
Overview: Appreciates the opportunity to be here. IBEW is going
on record as opposing the radical restructure of electrical utility
business in our state and on behalf of over 1,000 IBEW represented
families who earn their living in the utility business in this
state and over 5,000 members that we represent in Alaska, we ask
this committee and our legislature to thoroughly and deliberately
entertain the subject before you. We see very little evidence that
the residential consumer in the Lower 48 where restructuring has
been attempted, have enjoyed any reductions in cost or savings.
IBEW has seen evidence that their rates are going up. If the small
consumer has to subsidize the large consumers cost savings, we
think there is something fundamentally wrong in that. Please
carefully consider this issue. Brought up problems in the airline
industry that has been brought about since deregulation. Expensive
to fly from remote area in Alaska (Rep. Dyson "Juneau"),
(laughter,) yes it costs less to fly from here to Seattle, I can
get there far cheaper than I can get to our state capital.
Reliability in remote areas is a concern if industry is
deregulated. Brought up problems that happened in California after
deregulation of utility. Safety for consumer and workers if
utility is deregulated is another concern.
ROBERT WILKINSON, Four-Dam Pool, spoke for Four-Dam Pool, see
written testimony in committee file.
Committee Discussion - Round Table
See attachment.
ADJOURNMENT
CO-CHAIR ROKEBERG adjourned the meeting at 4:27 p.m.
COMMITTEE ACTION
The committee took no action.
ADJOURNMENT
The meeting adjourned at 4:27 p.m.
NOTE:
The meeting was recorded and handwritten log notes were taken. A
copy of the tape(s) and log notes may be obtained by contacting the
House Records Office at 130 Seward Street, Suite 211, Juneau,
Alaska 99801-1182, (907) 465-2214, and after adjournment of the
second session of the Twentieth Alaska State Legislature, in the
Legislative Reference Library.
JOINT COMMITTEE ON ELECTRIC UTILITY RESTRUCTURING
ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
AUGUST 6, 1998
NOTE: THIS PORTION OF THE MEETING WAS TRANSCRIBED VERBATIM
CO-CHAIRMAN NORMAN ROKEBERG: I'd like to reconvene the Joint
Committee on Electrical Utility Restructuring. And appreciate the
folks here at the table, also for the committee members if there's
anybody else in the audience you want to direct a question to
please feel free to do so. With that who would like to start the
questioning? Representative Dyson.
REPRESENTATIVE FRED DYSON: Thank you Mr. Chairman, I had a
question of Mary Ann that I forgot at when you were on deck there
before. You mentioned changes in technology that were going to
change the way things happen? What besides remote metering and
sophisticated metering do you see will impact things in the next 30
years?
MARY ANN PEASE, AURORA POWER: Well I do believe it's going be an
impact on fuel sales, I think there will be smaller generators that
will come on line with business, such as, the universities or....
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON: In the five to ten year time frame?
MS. PEASE: Yes I do.
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON: Thank you.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: That was Mary Ann Pease from Aurora Power,
for the record. Please remember that, I hate to do this, but it
makes it a lot easier and we get the minutes faster.
Representative Dyson, are you finished?
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON: Yes.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Who's next? Senator Leman.
SENATOR LOREN LEMAN: For Mr. Bjornstad. Gene, in our discussion
today, has I guess, I expect most of the others although in favor
of competition as a word in favor of the fairly aggressive action
at the retail level, but then there was (indisc.) that talks about
competition at the wholesale level. That I would guess would
impact your utility the most in Alaska is that something you are
prepared to embrace I guess the (indisc.) and participate in and
you know, has that lease space (indisc.) you know some of that line
you know wholesale and then pilot work and then retail as a first
step to enacting something that I think would be in the best
interest of Alaskans in the long run.
GENE BJORNSTAD, CHUGACH ELECTRIC: Well, first of all our view is
the wholesale competition has been going on for a number of years.
Chugach believes that the wholesale contracts that we have with our
wholesale customers were achieved though competition. We have a
competition or we had a competition just in the last year or so
with ML& P over Seward and whether or not we could serve them. But
I think the issue here is particularly from Matanuska's point of
view is that somehow or another we already have the wholesale
contract that we got with Matanuska set aside in some manner.
There is a comment that was made that they are captive and they
can't do anything about their power supplier. I think on the
contrary if you look at the Matanuska AEG&G contract there is a
couple of provisions in there that allow them number 1) change to
a net requirements customer; number 2) to change to a partial
requirements customer. Now contracts were made in 1989, five years
later we have ML & P going off to MEA offering to lower their
rates. And one of the suggestions that the General Manager and
their kind made to MEA was to let Chugach know, give Chugach
notice that they wanted to get out of the contract or change it.
We haven't received that notice. Just recently, I informed the
General Manager at Matanuska that they would like to discuss buying
out their contract, we're more than happy to discuss it. But we
don't think the legislature nor the PUC has the power to set aside
these contracts. They are legally binding, they are approved by
the governing boards, they were approved by the PUC, they were
approved by the REA and we've got documentation that at the time
Matanuska was very happy with that contract. But in the interest
of competition, if we, if they in fact want to discuss changing or
getting out of the contract we are more than willing to talk about
it.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Does MEA want to respond to that?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Well, I would....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: We're not here to humiliate or....
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: You want to get it out of there....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Right, their (indisc.)....
BRUCE SCOTT, MATANUSKA ELECTRIC ASSOCIATION: And you're correct -
Mr. Bjornstad is correct in saying at the time we were happy to
have a contract when we signed it because the circumstances were
that Chugach Electric has conveyed to MEA that we're going to sell
you X megawatts of power and if you need more than you're on your
own just find it somewhere anywhere. The language is a lot more
flowery, we were under the gun to assign some sort of contract as
quickly as possible. We do have options to get out of the contract
too I believe, but the contracts or the options that Mr. Bjornstad
has identified are such that would cap our purchase at the highest
level that we have had (indisc.) in the past. So that yeah, we can
go ahead and we agree to buy 100 megawatts of power to use a number
that is not too far of the mark from Chugach and anything over and
above that, that we need we can get freely compete for, you know,
open market. So it's not that much flexibility, I'm not sure that
we're not willing to discuss at some point of revising the
contract, in fact, you know we have talked at revamping
various but, it really isn't it, it really isn't accurate to say
that Chugach has (indisc.) the contract. We didn't have a whole
lot of choices at the time; we have an existing contract. It
wasn't just going to be wiped out; it was going to be capped.
There weren't a lot of other suppliers around, frankly vying to
provide MEA with power. There was no Aurora Gas, or lower
electricity or whatever you want to call it. There was ML&P and
there was Chugach. Frankly at the time, Chugach was the one to
supplying us the power. Given a different economic climate would
be assigned the contracts I could put on my Johnny Carson hat and
try and do some sort of searing (ph) scene, but there is no way to
know.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Senator Leman.
SENATOR LEMAN: I guess by asking that question, I got into
something I hadn't anticipated on and wasn't even aware of, of the
details of all those challenges, but, it's nice to know. I will
just say that from time to time when the legislature has proposed
some things it seems like opposition has come out from those who
are concerned about their contracts and things like that and
sometimes the legislature has specifically gone in and said look
you know for changing from this to this you know the contracts go
with it. You know whether it's the privatization of some state
service or something like that because then it seems like those who
get business from it or have that contract want to maintain that
status quo. So I wouldn't anticipate that anything we did would
void any existing contracts. I mean that would have to be done in
a court of law if or by some other commercial activity. I wouldn't
anticipate the legislature would do that. I certainly wouldn't
support that.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: There have been requests from the Speaker
Phillips' office that Mr. Story-Norman did you want to make any
comments or is she just worried that you got a shot at the to make
any comments today.
NORMAN STORY, HOMER ELECTRIC: Mr. Chairman, would you like me to
make one now relevant to this subject. It might be the most
important.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Sure if you want to come on up and join us
we would be happy to have you at the table anyway. You might point
out to the Speaker; he was trying to (indisc.--other people talking
at the same time). Tried not to testify, so....
NORMAN STORY: Well, we thought it was by invitation only today, so
my name is Norman Story, I am General Manager of Homer Electric:
And just on the subject of the contracts we have good relationship
with Chugach Electric today. Our concern relative to the issue of
competition, we spoke before about leveling the playing field, is
that we have to have the ability to have flexibility. We cannot
compete in our service territory if we are held to contracts that
do not allow us flexibility to achieve different cost structures
of, especially if the organization that is competing with us are
the organizations that have a private contract. And that's
probably the worst condition that we can perceive. For example, we
have Tesoro, it is one example; we do business with Phillips and
large consumers if someone and especially if it was Chugach came
down and attempted to take those consumers our contract with
Chugach anticipates the growth and the structure of consumers that
we have. We have a pay contract so our contract anticipated the
continued growth to bring a (indisc.) scale to the balance of our
(indisc.) so that's where we would have a difficulty with the issue
on contracts as it stands today in terms of open competition and
about understanding that effect. It basically would be unfair to
create an unfair market place for us. I appreciate the opportunity
to speak.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Certainly, Mr. Yould.
ERIC YOULD, ARECA: Mr. Chairman, along the same lines have to do
with the contracts that has been voiced by primarily the two uh
retailers of power, MEA and HEA. And that is that if competition
were limited to the Anchorage area primarily between ML&P and
Chugach Electric it is entirely possible that even though Chugach
is the one that's pushing so hard for the competition and perhaps
rightfully so, it is hard to say, that Chugach would actually get
its butt whipped. And Chugach would actually see the cost of its
power go up because ML & P has natural gas fields that would make
them more competitive. Well maybe that's okay, but the problem is
you have two wholesale contractors, HEA & MEA, that are tied to
that same contract with Chugach whose destiny is going to be tied
to what Chugach does. So it's not just an issue between ML&P and
Chugach, but there are really four people in that dogfight.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Thank you, Mr. Yould. It is clear to the
committee that we are not talking about mainly fair competition
here; we're talking about restructuring.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: True enough.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Senator Leman do you want to continue?
SENATOR LEMAN: Not right now.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Senator Sharp.
CO-CHAIRMAN BERT SHARP: I guess the part that uh,....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Norman, you can join us anyway.
CO-CHAIRMAN SHARP: One of the things that, that tickle my
imagination is the fair and just pricing out of the unbundled
services. I agree that cost of service studies are a normal thing
that's done. But they are not usually done every year and as
growth happens or the lack of growth cost of running those
particularly unbundled services go up and down and I'm just curious
to know and plus the fact that a lot of lines and generators are
built in anticipation of growth by the utility that is equipped to
do this. And if the growth doesn't occur, then that utility has
some problems, based on the economics of the investment that they
have made and I guess it would progress here I would be interested
to know how they would propose to price out the cost of service for
transmission and/or distribution and meter reading and customer
service and so forth. Would it be based on a public capacity of
that transmission line or is going to be based on the average cost
per unit as of a given date and time and a cost for service for
these guys, and if so, is that cost of service study have to be
updated annually to come up with new average cost for those
services and if so who is going to pay for that. Because cost of
services are not cheap. To do the studies of cost of service, I
mean. Should the regular customers not benefiting from that be
forced to pay for those cost of service studies or should they be
rolled into the cost of the unbundled service that's being charged
to the bulk of all providers as they incur along the line. Those
type of things we will get into later I'm sure Mr. Chairman, the
technicalities of how you fair (indisc.) interest and seeing how
this comes down. And I guess it's not anybody buy anybody....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I think anybody else didn't really wanted to
comment. We'll start with Mr. Bjornstad and then Ms. Pease and
then anybody else....
MR. BJORNSTAD: The topic of unbundling, I think needs to be
understood in a couple of different ways. There's one way to look
at it and that is unbundling your financial records so as Senator
Sharp suggests you can account for the costs of the different parts
of your business. This isn't a topic that has just come up in the
last couple of weeks. Those of you who have followed the industry
for a couple of years this is a topic that people have been
suggesting that a utility does. Chugach has embarked on this over
a year and half ago and we have in fact segregated our financial
accounts into generation transmission distribution services and
retail services. It's all that we can project what it is that's
going to cost somebody for a kilowatt of electricity. Now, there
is another way of looking at it, talking about unbundling and
separating the entire parts of the business into individual
entities. That again is a different way to look at that
unbundling. I don't know if that is what you had in mind but we
don't think that it is that expensive now that we have done it, you
have to set up your accounting system, it takes a lot of work and
it takes a lot of people internally to set it up and then you have
to train your workers and your work force to put the time in the
right boxes and so forth and what investment you make in it,
obviously you are going to change those indicators or those
allocators over time. I guess I would propose that you could
probably update these figures probably every couple of years. It
would be something we would submit to the commission for approval
and then anybody who uses our transmission system would pay the
same price, as we would charge ourselves. The same thing with the
distribution system. I think that is the way you'd do it.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Ms. Pease.
MS. PEASE: Just expanding briefly on what Mr. Bjornstad has said;
for example ML&P has about 24 miles of transmission line and
approximately 350 miles of distribution line. That does not change
substantially once you get a good base to work from which I think
already exists. The amount of new transmission lines that is being
added is negligible over the next few years. And the amount of new
distribution line again is not that great. If there is a major
change in the system distribution of transmission systems that the
cost of study would have to be redone and those numbers
recalculated. So I don't see that there is that big of a issue,
and again, once you get the (indisc.) in place to update every two
or three years should be sufficient.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Mr. Wonnell.
DONN WONNELL, ML&P: I think actually Senator Sharp is onto a very
good problem. The Telecommunications Act by with an analogy was
passed in February of 1996; court issues about pricing are now
finally before the Supreme Court of the United States and are
unresolved at this time. Accounting systems account for cost
investment expense. That sort of thing. What they don't do
traditionally is allocate the services. Particularly when the
services aren't (indisc.) unbundled. When the existing mechanisms
do not actually impress the question of how shall we price the
particular service, when we have never provided before, and how
shall it be collected. The question of identification of cost
particularly what a (indisc.--coughing) joint common cost. The
allocation of those costs is extremely important. It would be a
natural inclination for any entity which has a choice to allocate
cost where a consumer respond is least elastic where consumers have
to pay for it. I conclude now, as consumers are potential users of
the transmission system. There is a second problem in that cost
allocated towards or away from, for example, generational impacts
stranded. Stranded investment becomes quickly other peoples money
and may prove to be a managerial adept approach to try and blow up
generator costs for recovering from a third source if you can
improve your competitive decision elsewhere in the market place.
So it is not simply a matter of reforming an accounting system, I
have no doubt that Chugach Electric has done so in good faith, it's
a restructuring industry with the owners of all segments, the
generation transmission, and distribution for recovering a
reasonable profit or at least have a reasonable opportunity to
recover a reasonable profit which is what the law requires. And
none the less to prevent costs which are competitively neutral in
due market competition to occur, as a result of this entire thing
is not simply an activity. Telecom is proving that. And I think
you will find similar levels of detail allocation problems in the
electric (indisc.). This is something that you ought to consider
and I think that the Senator is quite correct.
MR. SCOTT: Senator Sharp also addresses quite pointedly the
question that came up with fairly. How do you fairly cover these
costs? Chugach Electric Association proposed to serve some of ML&
P's customers and said Chugach will pay X amount to ship the
electricity along ML& P's lines and we have determined this is the
fair value, and that's what they we are going to pay. The ML&P I
understand disagreed with that assessment. But the APUC in order
97 297-201 rejected Chugach's attempt to serve ML&P's customers and
of course now, we have another proposal before the Commission from
yet another group. But identifying the cost further what I'm
trying to tell you what the costs are for Chugach to ship us power,
I'm going to weigh this as much as I can on our side; I mean this
is the natural inclination, of course, I personally would never do
that because I am an honest and forthright businessman, but, the
inclination industry wide is going to be for whatever business is
doing the evaluation to try and shave the numbers, if you will, to
benefit them as much as possible. So it's not going to be an easy
matter to determine exactly what is the cost is to the consumer and
what portion of that.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I have a follow up for this if you have
a....
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: No, go ahead.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I would like to direct this follow up to Mr.
Ornquist. I think this issue is central to our charge; if we agree
to recommend whether the legislature should take this up then I
think it's our duty in terms of policy setting to give the APUC
enough, as much direction as possible. Keeping it as simple as
possible, but to avoid the complexities of the issue to give you
some directions so you don't have to make the decisions in ord...
-- and also to avoid as much litigation as might be generated from
it. In so doing you think it would be appropriate for the
legislature to at least make a broad brush policy statement as to
which stranded embedded cost, how this is to be done, the level of
burden and what could be put into a ultimate formula a narrative
type forum statutorily to give you direction, do you think that
would be a good idea.
DWIGHT ORNQUIST, PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION: I think it would be
good for the legislature to give us a very broad directive,
something on the order of take care of stranded costs
appropriately. The reason I say that is because we will be running
into issues that we haven't considered and as slow as the APUC is
to deal with things and change if we, if a mistake is made
somewhere along the line it is even more difficult generally to
address that legislatively. The legislative level should give us
good long distance targets and we should try to find the best
method of attaining the target that the legislature has set. The
complexity, the actual complexity of unbundling and determining
what is and isn't stranded investment. That will be determined a
lot by the form of the new structure if we do restructure. Which
we haven't even determined yet, we are still at the stage of saying
should we do anything and if so what would happen. Any direction
from the legislature at this point especially I think should not be
too detailed, but if more detail needs to be added in then add it
in later.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Then Mr. Ornquist how long is it going to
take the APUC to define what stranded costs are? About three
years?
MR. ORNQUIST: I don't think so. I recently have become the
Chairman on the National Association of Regulatory Utility
Commissions Finance and Technology Committee and one of the things
I have asked for at this last meeting we had was to come up with a
good definition of stranded investment that would also reflect our
situation up here in Alaska. I would imagine that the study that
we are talking about once we begin the process to coming out with
the full study should probably take a couple of two or three months
and we should have the information. Probably one of the biggest
helps that we could receive is in the area of prioritizing if the
legislature were to say we want to see you address this quickly
then that would speed up our processing a lot. Right now we find
ourselves dealing with a lot of different issues with a lot of
different industries and sometimes the important stuff gets put off
a little bit, because the urgent stuff is right in front of us and
the burning issues are right there on the day to day basis. So we
do try to follow direction well. If the legislature said hurry up,
I'm sure we would respond well to that.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I suppose my concern is that with too broad
a brush then if you make decisions that that would invite
litigation. Is that, I guess there's got to be a balance there
somewhere. Mr. Bjornstad, go ahead.
MR. BJORNSTAD: I think you are going to hear in about a week or
two I guess a couple of weeks is your meeting on the 18th you're
going to have I think ARECA has hired an expert to come up and talk
about this situation up here. One of the things he talked about in
his book is stranded investment, I mean he classifies them in three
areas, generation, contracts, long term wholesale contracts and
fuel contracts and regulatory assets. I would submit to you there
is probably some of all those three in this area up here. I think
you probably can talk to that person when he gets here.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Any further questions along those lines.
Representative Davies, do you have a question?
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DAVIES: Just need to comment on the last
discussion a little bit. I think in the issue of broad vs. narrow
that it's generally better for the legislature to stick to the
broad side and in respect to these kinds of issues I believe that
they will be, if they need to be litigated they will be litigated
in any case, no matter how detailed we try to make our
instructions. So I'm always inclined to set broad policy and let
the experts follow in the details. Although I have some detailed
questions. My concerns are generally along the lines of
reliability things like spinning reserve, how, when you have you
have a wide open free wheeling market place how do you fairly
allocate the costs for making sure that there is redundancy making
sure there is the ability to respond and to respond quickly. In
our situation when it is 50 below do you allow the possibility for
a supplier to just walk away, what are the contractual penalties
for that, what are the legal ramifications you know, it can become
the provision of electricity in our market can be a life and death
issue. And that, those are the kinds of concerns I bring to the
discussion, I'd like to hear some discussion about how we can
assure our customers if we are to go into a more competitive
environment that those kinds of concerns would be dealt with.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Bruce Scott.
MR. SCOTT: It's, I don't know how many of you have been following
the news in the Lower 48 on the weather patterns down there. There
is a huge heat wave going on there. They have been running low on
electricity and particularly in areas where they have had more
competition if you will in areas they have previously and they have
been able to come up with the electricity that they have needed,
unfortunately the price has gone through the roof. I've heard of
people paying phenomenal costs for megawatt hour of electricity, I
don't know $7,000 per megawatt hour of electricity. What's an
average cost? (Indisc.--people talking at once) I mean you are
providing it so the question for them becomes well yeah sure you
can provide it, but at what cost? What guarantees do you have that
there is not going to be some sort of gouging or you know market
base gouging or (indisc.--garbled) after the fact? I don't know
how you do that, if somebody is marketing electricity and trying to
make a profit off of it, they are more inclined to be selling
electricity and making a profit then they are trying to figure out
how to keep the customer on line all of the time. That 's not
their priority. Our priority at MEA is not to sell the electricity
to make money, I mean that's important for us to do that or we
would be out of business, but our first priority is to keep the
lights on. If the lights aren't on, we don't have any customers.
We don't send to any cells, we are just out of business. If
somebody else doesn't keep the lights on, well yeah they are losing
some money, but later on when the lights come back on someone else
fixes the problem and they can go ahead and make some more money on
the deal. So when you have that kind of area of competition, I
don't think you have the commitment that you have in the case where
it is a member owned cooperative, or even a municipal cooperative,
where the voters, the members are depending on you to keep them
from shivering when it is 50 degrees below zero. I don't know how
you provide for backup in a competitive market place other than to
say well they are my customers when I'm making a dollar, when I'm
not making a dollar because the temperature dropped too far they're
your customers.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: My concern is to him, there might not be
somebody over there to hand it to (this is John Davies again)
(indisc.--people talking), get some more people on this issue.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Ms. Pease.
MS. PEASE: The ancillary services that go along with the
distribution of generation of power will be purchased just as they
are today. The systems reliability should not change one iota. We
supply natural gas to over 700 customers and never has one of those
customers been without heat in the wintertime because of the
competitive market place. It just doesn't happen. The same
reliability issues that are associated with natural gas would be
applied to electricity the same way that exists today. In order to
purchase power, any power arrangement has to be done from a
telemarketer. A utility affiliate or anybody else for that matter
would have to meet stringent qualifications and have same spinning
reserves low following ancillary services that are provided today
on existing system.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Can I follow up on that? How, what is that
package number from (indisc.) if you're a reseller you have no
spinning reserves so you have to purchase them and they would be
contractual requirements of this selling arrangement?
MS. PEASE: Absolutely correct. And if I could follow up on that;
in the discussions that I have had with Chugach, every single one
of the conversations that we talked about the ability to purchase
power from Chugach, it has been a complete package with all the
other ancillary services that go along with it. Such as load
following, spinning reserves, the liability issues that we're
talking about here.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Then, Ms. Pease, if you want to draw an
analogy to natural gas, you also have to have a spinning reserve
equivalent to natural gas too.... You have to have an excess of
capacity for high demand.
MS. PEASE: That's correct. High demand in the wintertime.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Right and it is my understanding that if we
don't have to bring new gas on line that we are going to have a
shortage of gas in the procurement area in a few years. I mean
there is that theory. Right?
MS. PEASE: But that just means that (indisc.) could be brought
about by competitive forces, which we're talking about here and
reliability of the system. That's like a natural resource....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: So to say, that it hasn't happened to
natural gas I won't belabor the point. Mr. Scott.
MR. SCOTT: It is a bit of stretch to compare natural gas to
liability, to an electrical liability. I mean how many trees fall
over on natural gas lines causing power outages. 90% of the power
outages MEA has is because of a tree falling on our lines. Another
5% are caused by squirrels or birds committing hari-kari. This
doesn't happen to a gas supplier. And gas is there, it's reliable.
Sure in an earthquake you are going to have a problem, so will we,
but most of our power outages are caused by other factors. I mean
who is going to send a lineman out there; you have to have
contracting in place for that. If MEA is sufficiently damaged by
having competition, I say it could happen, but if we were, maybe we
haven't got the money to have people out there to repair the lines
as quickly as before, maybe we don't have them at all. Who's going
to do it?
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Mr. Ornquist.
MR. ORNQUIST: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Regarding these issues,
that Representative Davies brought up; first of all we do still
have oversight of entry and exit in this industry. That means that
a provider cannot just pick up and walk out and not serve anymore.
We have certain standards for service and safety that have to be
met by all providers. In as far as covering the cost of those
issues, and the issues that fall upon the infrastructure let's say,
those are currently allocated among all the customers. And they
would continue to be allocated among all the customers. The
spinning reserves are paid by all the customers. Keep in mind the
end customer is the one that's paying all the bills no matter what.
And the idea is to make sure they pay for their share no more, no
less, and make it as accurate as possible. We currently do all
those things; we just do them with fewer companies and a little
different manner right now because of the structure of the
organization and the industry.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Ms. Pease.
MS. PEASE: I would like to comment, who is going to bring up the
oversight of the APUC? Mr. Ornquist .
MR. WONNELL: I would like to add one point. Commissioner Ornquist
is correct when he talks about public utilities. They do control
the entry and exit the utilities and conditions for service, but
Aurora has asserted in this application that it is not a public
utility, that it does not require the certificate of public
(indisc.). If that is true there seems to be a free market could
hold one of the most basic principle is free exit. Anytime you
want (indisc.) you are not subject to regulations (indisc.) that
goes to Mr. Davies question about long term liability, well these
people can come and go at will, making again what happens to their
company (indisc.).
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Speaks for universal services. Ms. Pease
you have a rejoinder.
MS. PEASE: Yes, in response to that statement. The presentation
that we did to the Public Utility (indisc.--coughing) the variation
came up and Aurora Power even though in the application we said
that it wouldn't be necessary to have any sort of a certificate for
a public utility that currently exists today because we don't own
any generating assets of any kind. We would be more than happy to
subject ourselves to some sort of market certification, and that is
addressed in the application as well, where the APUC would have to
certify anyone entering and exiting the market so that they
wouldn't just leave on a whim. That is not our intent by any
stretch of the imagination.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Very good. Question, Representative Davies.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: Can I just follow up and ask another
question?
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Sure.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: If in that kind of a circumstance where
you, there was some sort of market certification, what would be the
(indisc.--coughing) to just.... I don't know how that mechanism
works. Mr. Chair?
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Ornquist.
MR. ORNQUIST: There are two things to consider there, some
utilities will be facilities based. I think everybody here
represents or works with facilities based electric utilities there
except for Ms. Pease. If you are a facilities based utility then
that's where a lot of the reliability lies. And facilities include
all the infrastructure and then we can go over into the generation
side of the (indisc.--coughing) non-facilities based entities
probably wouldn't have much impact if they exited easily. Because
the facilities would remain there the service would remain there.
The generation would be there; they wouldn't notice it, if their
bill would come from somebody else, suddenly. But, as far as and
if one of those entities wish to exit quickly we probably would say
find somebody to supply your customers and everything is okay with
the same price and one of the mechanisms we would use for that
would be perhaps bonding. They would have to provide a bond of a
certain amount to be sure that any cost could be covered. We
implemented that technique with some of the telecommunications
companies and it seems to work okay.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Ms. Pease, did you have a comment? Okay,
Eric and then Gene.
MR. YOULD: I guess a question for the Commissioner then is why was
an entity that was facility based by the name of Alaska Power &
Systems so easily allowed to leave the state of Alaska without any
kind of a rejoinder by APUC?
MR. ORNQUIST: We have a docket on that and are working on all that
right now.
MR. YOULD: And who forced you into that document?
MR. ORNQUIST: Well I'm not really able to discuss a whole lot in
it, just like judges and can't talk about open cases but, it was as
far as procedurally that was at the, we opened that document at the
complaint of a utility and then we addressed it or are addressing.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Then who is the supplier of last resort in
rural area then if there is a failure?
MR. ORNQUIST: The supplier of last resort is probably a separate
issue and that is certainly something that does have to be
addressed, and how it's addressed is something that we have more
than one option on. Coming up with which option we wish to use
would be part of the process. Picking the way right now would not
be, a good way to go until the studies are....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Gene, you had a question.
MR. BJORNSTAD: I guess I don't want to change the direction of
this discussion, I just want to make a comment on the figure that's
been talked about and what happened in June down in the Lower 48
with the shortage or the high prices on the electricity. I think
there is another point of view and I don't claim to know all the
details down there, but another point of view at least some people
say is that is an indication that the market was working. There
was shortage of some supply because of high demand and the price
went up, unfortunately it went way up a lot more than people
thought it was going to be, but I think if you look at what's
happening down in other parts of the world that is a situation of
competition. I'm not suggesting $7,000 a megawatt hour, but I
think the other point you'll find is that the cost is probably
going to be paid by the investors and not the consumers because I
think the regulatory agencies are not going to allow that cost to
be passed onto consumers.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Questions of the committee? Mr. Story?
MR. STORY: Can I just make one comment on that? And in most of
our cases, the people who are the investors and the holders of this
are the consumers themselves. (Indisc.).
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Representative Davies.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: That's a good segway (ph) into my other
question is I noticed that in many of the other states where they
passed legislation that there is provision that allows cooperatives
to op out, I guess on their own decision making. How would people
feel about that kind of provision in the state of Alaska and what
will the impact on the development competition here where we have
a situation where the calculated 65 percent to 85 percent of the
capacity is cooperatively owned?
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Mr. Ornquist.
MR. ORNQUIST: Representative Davies, that would probably cut it
off right at about the knees, (laughter) I look around and the bulk
of the area where competition would probably show the greatest
benefit, I believe was served entirely by municipals and co-op's.
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES: But, so you're presuming that they would op
out.
MR. ORNQUIST: Presuming they would op out correct.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Good question, Senator Sharp.
CO-CHAIRMAN SHARP: We're talking about X number of load here, so
many a kilowatt hours, is this going to be split to different pies
by other people coming in and taking some of the kilowatt hours and
marketing generations that serve these consumers who already exist
on someone else's facilities. I guess what is going to be and we
know in all probability that the drivers on this is going to be the
very large industrial loads or commercial loads that are privately
owned and probably not owned by Alaskans. But who are very
concerned about their bottom line, so they can shave a half a
million bucks off their power bill they don't care who eats it. So
the utility ends up with a half million dollars less in profits to
meet their obligations and you multiply this times 10 percent on
the pilot project or some other pilot project. Could be larger
depending on the type of large accounts individual utilities have.
The individual utilities has four accounts that makes up 50 percent
of their load it would be disastrous, and what then is the
commission going to do to protect the residential account? Utility
filing a RID case that says hey we got to raise our rates because
we can't make it. But the profit, the savings goes to the other
supplier and to the large commercials. I don't see where there's
going to be a clamoring to serve the residential users 500 kilowatt
hours, 600 kilowatt hours unless the commission forces that onto-
that was a percentage based on that utilities percentage of
residential gas, kilowatt hours and so forth. Still that's a tough
sale, and how do you protect the Alaskan resident sitting here
twelve months out of the year and doesn't have a bottom line to
worry about, worry about stretching a paycheck. It's costing two
people, two concerns 1) to the supplier and to the large commercial
account that effects his bottom line, we are still the same pie,
just being split up a little bit differently.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Mr. Commissioner, do you want to....
MR. ORNQUIST: Boy there are a number of things there that, first
of all, what happens is I -- right now we establish rates. We
establish rates for the large consumer; we establish rates for the
small consumer. If we have a situation that the large consumer is
subsidizing the small consumer where the costs that are required,
the cost incurred that are to serve that big consumer are over
recovered and the costs for the small consumer are under recovered
I don't know of it, because, right now our whole, the whole idea of
regulation is to make sure that those costs are adequately and
accurately set. We talk a lot about the big customers being more
profitable, we talk a lot about nobody wants the little customers,
I'm now so sure that's necessarily the case. Do you make as an
organization would you make more money with one customer and
selling a million-kilowatt hours or a thousand customers and
selling a million-kilowatt hours. A lot of debate that could go
around that. If we've been regulating correctly, then it would be
the same, because all the costs would be allocated appropriately
and they'd be paying what they should be paying for power right
now, unfortunately I don't think we're that good. I think that
what we find is a the efficiencies that we can drive as a regulator
are much like the efficiencies you might find working with your
children. And you tell them to do something and watch them and
they are doing it and then you go away and maybe they'll do it
maybe they won't depends on your kids. I think we've got good
utilities in Alaska overall, but then you compare that to the
performance that you get when your paying based on performance and
your child instead of earning $5 an hour, you say do this work and
when your done I'll give you more, I'll give you a hundred dollars
to get this done. They will probably get more done. I suppose I
didn't have to use kids, but I'm in the midst of raising kids so
that comes to mind pretty fast.
CO-CHAIR SHARP: That's all okay, but would the Commission consider
and any of the other utilities consider what some of the other
states have done? If you want to be in the competitive retail
market you divest yourself of all your generation and it goes into
a pool. Everybody gets to buy out of that pool. You want to be
competitive, let's get competitive.
MR. ORNQUIST: Thank you, my first cut, my theory at competition
includes exactly what will be very similar to what you are saying.
First of all the infrastructure should be regulated. I think that
is something we don't want duplicated and everybody needs to share
the costs. Secondly, you've got the wholesale and the retail
pricing and that's something that could be driven by supply and
demand. And then you've got generation, generation doesn't
necessarily need to be regulated the same, but you have to have
standards; service and safety standards. I think those three areas
need to be addressed with difference using different structures.
So I don't think it's a one size fits all there, I think those
separations would be necessary.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: The chair would like to recognize the "rocket
man" Representative Alan Austerman from Kodiak. Welcome Alan.
Question for the committee. I have - My own purpose, my educating
myself and, perhaps some of the members of the committee. Could
someone give a definition of what the current federal and state
universal service requirements are? The reason I bring this up is
because is that I recall that last summer when I was in Cordova for
the ARECA convention, to give a short speech on this, I took a ride
out on one of the roads there and there was this three mile
underground buried cable to one house, and I'm going who's paying
for this. (laughter) There was a demand for the service and there
was an extremely expensive installation of underground cable for
power and so what is our current status and what are we mandated to
do. Mr. Commissioner can you help us.
MR. ORNQUIST: Generally, the way it operates now is if you are in
an area and it's in a service area of one of the utilities and you
go in and you say you want power, the way most of them work that
I'm aware of is you get a certain amount to work with. You get up
to say $3,000 they will put in toward building this line. Anything
above that you have to finance or pay for yourself and then when
it's done you give it to the utility and it becomes their property.
And then a lot of times at that point depending on the agreement
they have if anybody hooks up to that you might get some money back
for them hooking up. But the utilities generally pay a certain
first X amount of dollars and then the person wishing to be
attached has to pay beyond that. Now there
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: There are federal requirements.
MR. ORNQUIST: That's with us. That's the state. We actually
that's the way most co-ops have set it up and most utilities. It's
not actually something we require I don't think.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: My question was what are the state
requirements, and the federal requirements of universal service.
MR. ORNQUIST: I don't know of any for electric, we have them for
telecom but I don't know of any for electric.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Can you verify that for the committee?
MR. ORNQUIST: I'd love to.
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Does anybody else have any.
MR. WONNELL: There is a very extensive universal cost from the
telecom act of '96, there is no equivalent cost structure to the
energy act. (Indisc.--people talking).
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Any more questions from our committee members?
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, is it your
intention to quit at 4:30?
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Yes, it is.
REPRESENTATIVE DYSON: And is it your intention that the committee
itself have any discussion here about how we are going to proceed
or anything, at this meeting.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Not today, unless you have some questions or
recommendations. We, in terms of process we have the general
public hearing on the 18th, I think after that we should have, I,
what I may do, at that time I'll discuss this with Senator Sharp is
to break the committee into some subcommittees after that period
because there are certain areas of this issue that perhaps we want
to focus on if we have a little bit of division of labor and maybe
we can make some more graphic headway that's something we should
discuss at our next meeting. If anybody has any ideas regarding
that, I'll be contacting the committee members. Mr. Kelly, sir.
MIKE KELLY: Just a question, Mr. Chairman, when you have this
public meeting is it your intention that the utilities not rehash
what we've done, but rather you want us there as a resource or want
us to stay away out in the crowd. What's your idea there so that
we can begin to prepare for the....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I think that because it's a more limited
period of time, I wanted to make sure that everybody else in the
whole state had an opportunity to testify and you are certainly are
invited to testify also.
MR. KELLY: I'm not pushing for that, I'm interested in what you
want....
CO-CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: I think that's appropriate, but if there is
time available and we have the ability to do that the committee has
some questions, if you want to have yourselves or representatives
attend or be on teleconference as resources if the committee has
any questions. One reason I decided to schedule it at that time,
I thought some folks would be coming in here for the ARECA
Convention in Wasilla and those people that didn't have an
opportunity to come and attend today or be a part of this whole
process, that would give them an opportunity to hopefully adjust
their schedules to make an actual testimony at that time. Because
today was intended primarily for, it was by invitation only so we
could get the major players if you will to help educate this
committee as to what the issues are, so we can decide what
direction you want to go even without hearings and so forth. And
I think we have done that today very admirably. And we will be
wrapping up in a few minutes and I do want to thank everybody for
coming and participating, I know I've certainly learned a lot
today, and we got a couple more minutes because we do have an
airplane to catch. Gene go ahead.
MR. BJORNSTAD: This morning, Representative Dyson, I think posed
the question to me and many others about changes in technology in
the next five to ten years that might effect the industry. Chugach
is involved in several fuel cell projects right now and if you look
at the economics of them, it makes sense because there are some
grants from the federal government similar to what Golden Valley
got from the (indisc.) but I think fuel cells in the future are
going to impact the industry. I also think that if you read the
paper very small fuel cells, I think an advertisement I saw just
yesterday, about a fuel cell you put in your house. The other
technology that we probably need to be concerned about is micro
turbines. I think you are going to get a demonstrate -- not a
demonstration but at least a presentation by micro turbine
manufacturer at the ARECA Convention here in a couple of weeks.
Chugach is also looking into the micro turbine. Those things are
important because if a person puts one of those in his house he
probably doesn't need to rely very much on his local utility or
local power market or anybody else. It may mean that we're going
to have to look at the industry differently. I think you find the
Lower 48 there are also utilities getting in other lines of
business, I know Chugach certainly is, I know other utilities in
this room are doing the same thing. One of the other promising
things that we have heard about is the telecommunications world
maybe something the electric utilities in the country are going to
get concerned or involved in because apparently there is some kind
of process right now that you can use your electric conductors to
transmit data. Apparently, it is going forward in Europe and
anticipate we will see that here in the next year or so. All those
things are going to make us look differently at our customers and
look differently at our organizations and I think we don't know
what's coming down the pike, but there are going to be changes
whether we like it or not and I think that some of these things are
going to require more competition non the less. (Tape Ends)
MR. YOULD: Gene was talking about and that is the ARECA Convention
that is going to be coming up. It is going to be the week of the
18th, the primary program is on the 20th and the 21st primarily on
the 20th Mike, I'm sorry Senator Murkowski is going to be with us
as well and I think the Governor is going to be there having to do
something with uh the transfers (indisc.). Never the less the
theme of the conference is Restructuring Year 2000 and it is on
everybody's mind in the utility industry. It is an opportunity for
all of you'all (ph) to get first hand input from the boards of
directors of all the utilities not just (indisc.--coughing)
throughout the state on how they feel about this issue and what
concerns they have and perhaps they are a little bit different from
the concerns you have heard from the management of the utilities
here today, but as Gene mentioned we are also going to have some
technology people there as well. People that will be able to talk
to us and are going to be a formal part of the program to talk
about fuel cells, formally to talk about micro turbines and I think
that we are going to be talking about uh small pylons (ph). So in
addition to conducting a forum similar to this round table here,
with many of the same cast of characters so that my industry and my
board of directors can hear all of the concerns from everybody here
as well. But I very much like to encourage all of the members of
this committee to attend. I know three of you have been able to
find it within your busy schedules to accept and attend and we
would certainly love to see as many of you there as possible, but
it will be a good educational a good two way educational process
for everybody that could come. One of the advance seminar games
that we are actually going to be playing is going to be the
deregulation game and it is an all day probe/seminar where
participants actually set themselves up as utilities and try and
compete with each other and it is a formalized program that has
made quite a - become quite popular amongst similar conventions in
the Lower 48 where you figure out at least in a fun setting how to
compete with each other.
General comments by the different presenters to committee about
seminars, meetings, etc.
CHAIRMAN ROKEBERG: Any further comments from committee members? I
want to thank everybody very much for attending today. It was very
informative and I think that it was a day well spent with that I
will adjourn this meeting until the 18th of August. Meeting
adjourned at 4:27 p.m. August 6, 1998.
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