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 Monday.

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.”

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.” The industryaim is to “force consumers to bail out their bad assets.” 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 utilityexecutives, however, sustained a more subtle hit from FERCCommissioner Vicky Bailey, speaking to a general session, whosuggested 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.

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