While some are concerned that the collapse of Enron and the loss of its marathon lobbying efforts for competitive markets at a critical time, particularly for electric restructuring, may have left those markets vulnerable, retail marketer The New Power Co.(NPC), doesn’t believe the open market campaign has been damaged.

“There’s not really a void,” said Kathleen Magruder, New Power vice president of government affairs. Although most might expect a vacuum since “Enron was so loud and so visible,” she noted that “people tend to forget that there are companies like The New Power Co., Green Mountain, Strategic Energy, and AES New Energy that are very active and vocal on both the state and federal level on competition issues.”

“We may not be spending as much money, but a number of us are organized and working to keep competitive choice for energy in the public eye,” Magruder continued. “We’re members of organizations in California, Texas, Georgia, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, all of which work together to spread the gospel of competitive choice for energy customers. At the state level we’re all very actively engaged. And we’re doing the same thing at the federal level as well.” New Power, which markets on the retail level to residential and commercial customers, has more than 800,000 electric and natural gas customers in 10 states, primarily in Georgia, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Energy market advocacy shouldn’t suffer on the state level, Mark Stultz, vice president of public affairs and marketing for the Electric Power Supply Association, agreed, pointing to all the independent organizations supporting electric restructuring in the states.

Stultz acknowledged the trailblazing efforts of Enron and Chairman Kenneth Lay for competitive markets. Overall, “we’re aware of the loss of a significant player in energy market advocacy efforts,” but “just as the markets responded, you’ll see an individual company response to a void in advocacy,” Stultz said. While EPSA will be continuing and broadening its education efforts with the Congress, there is only so much a trade association can do on its own.. He said the group’s members are concerned and will be watching for any government backlash from the Enron debacle that might slow progress on electric restructuring.

“There is an increased recognition of the need for people on the ground in Washington to be establishing relationships. Restructuring has been very successful on the regulatory front, and “we don’t want to see that trumped by Congress. There is a recognition that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could become a target for those who want to slow competition. We’re continuing to work on educating Congress about the benefits competition already is bringing to wholesale markets.”

“We need to complete the transition to give the markets some certainty. We need to finish this. It’s like being a trapeze artist in mid-leap, without a net.”

Magruder, meanwhile, said that the same way others stepped in and filled the gap in the markets left by Enron’s default, with “hardly a blip,” she expects the same to happen on the advocacy front. “A lot of us worked at one point or another for Enron, and so we know how good Enron was at being able to make those issues known and get them into the public eye, and so we don’t feel like we’ve missed a beat at all.”

For instance, Enron was scheduling agent for the competitive market in Texas. “The good news is ERCOT had in place a default or qualified scheduling entity (QSE), and when EPMI went away, the default provider stepped right in, and there wasn’t a blip on the radar screen. The energy markets all worked exceptionally well.”

Magruder, who was a government affairs employee for Enron several years back and worked on the electric restructuring model for Texas, believes “the Texas model is going to be the gold standard for electricity competition. We’re beginning to see a model that really does work. All eyes have turned south to Texas since January 1st when that market opened. I have confidence customers will see they really can benefit from having a choice.”

Congress does need to investigate the Enron problems, she added, but “I believe they will find the fault was in the accounting and securities side of the house and not on the market side. It was more an accounting failure and not an energy markets’ failure.”

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