A group of about 20 consumer activists, complaining of highcompensation for utility executives and excessive bail-out costs oftheir companies, attempted to disrupt the annual meeting of theEdison Electric Institute in Chicago last week.

Waving posters with large dollar signs, the group demanded tomeet with utility executives and to attend a scheduled closed-doorsession on executive compensation.

“Analysts estimate that electric utility stranded costs willrange from $246 to $350 billion, which works out to $1000 for everyman, woman and child in the country,” said John Cameron of CitizenAction of Illinois. “If the utility industry gets its way,deregulation could mean the largest federal bailout in history.”

The group said Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison recently paidits retiring chairman and president $3 million and $2 millionrespectively and gave its incoming CEO a $2.6 million signingbonus. The EEI attendees were welcomed by Commonwealth’s outgoingCEO James O’Connor, who “presided over ComEd’s accumulation of $10billion in bad investments and then led the charge in the Illinoislegislature to stick ComEd customers with the tab,” said Cameron.

Speaking mainly for TV cameras and a small crowd that gatheredin a fringe area of the 1,100 delegate conference, Wenonah Hauterof Public Citizens Critical Mass Energy Project charged theassembled electric utility executives were “plotting to win fullrecovery of their stranded costs through federal law.” EEIofficials offered to meet privately with the group without thepress, but the consumer group declined, and having made their pointfor the TV cameras, decamped without incident.

The utility executives, however, sustained a more subtle hitfrom FERC Commissioner Vicky Bailey, speaking to a general session,who suggested competition was nearly non-existent in the electricutility industry. The theme of most sessions at the three-dayconference at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago centered on thetransition to competition. Bailey said FERC’s own transition tomeet the competitive challenge would include more reliance on anupgraded complaint procedure.

Ellen Beswick

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