ERMUSR MISC. ITEMS 02-10-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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SWIM' I.NNESOT4 MVNICIPPI V i.L,"'��'.SCCW I(i^: 12805 .crway 55 • Suite 212 • Plymouth, MN 55441-3859 • 763.55''. :230 • 800 422 0119[MN) • Fax 763.551.0459 H.R. 6, The Energy Policy Act of 2003 The House of Representatives passed its version of H.R. 6 in April 2003. In July, the Senate passed its own comprehensive energy bill. The conference committee, formed to reconcile the two bills, approved a new version of H.R. 6 in November. A few days later, the new H.R. 6 passed the House on a 246-180 vote. However, the bill met strong opposition in the Senate and is still pending. Public power is generally supportive of the following provisions in the Electricity Title (Title XII): • Section 1236—Native Load Obligation. Contains service obligation language that equally protects the existing firm transmission rights of transmission owners and transmission dependent utilities. The protections provided by this provision do not apply to load-serving entities located in the PJM, New York and New England ISOs. • Section 1231 — Open Nondiscriminatory Access. Contains open access/FERC-lite language that requires an "unregulated transmitting utility" (public power systems, rural electric cooperatives, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Power Marketing Administrations) to provide open access to their transmission facilities at rates comparable to what they charge themselves and under terms and conditions comparable to those they apply to themselves. The provision clarifies that nothing in this section authorizes FERC to order an unregulated transmitting utility to join an RTO. • Section 1235—Standard Market Design. Prohibits the implementation of final rules, or any rule or order within the scope of the proposed Standard Market Design (SMD) rulemaking, prior to December 31, 2006. • Section 1221 —Siting of Interstate Electric Transmission Facilities. Grants FERC "backstop"transmission-siting authority(the use of eminent domain) in areas identified by DOE as critical transmission congestion pathways in cases where a state lacks authority to issue a permit or has delayed or denied a permit. Authorizes interstate siting"compacts"to help identify regional siting priorities. • Section 1211 —Electric Reliability Standards. Creates mandatory reliability standards promulgated by an electric reliability organization with regional stakeholder input. While generally supportive of the energy bill,public power has concerns about the following elements of the bill: • Repeals the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA). PUHCA has protected generations of Americans from the concentration of utility ownership by huge utility conglomerates. PUHCA should be retained unless sufficient alternate consumer protection provisions are provided. In our view the consumer protection provisions in H.R. 6 are not a sufficient alternative to PUHCA.