Several consumer groups last week took steps toward pushing forre-regulation nationally and in several states, denouncing effortsto deregulate the electricity industry as flawed.

A new report, “Reconsidering Electricity Restructuring,” wasreleased Thursday in Washington, DC, by the Consumer Federation ofAmerica (CFA) and Consumers Union (CU), pointing to three years ofpower price spikes and brownouts in various regional and statewholesale markets as an indication that supply and demandconditions are not right in the power business.

California’s current struggles are cited by CFA and CU as havinga dampening effect on efforts elsewhere in the nation to open upelectricity markets.

In a separate take-it-or-leave-it gesture earlier last week,California consumer advocates on Nov. 28 handed the state’s governorand state legislature an ultimatum to rollback electric industryrestructuring and insert the state in an expanded role over thedevelopment and operation of power plants. If the elected officialsfail to act, the consumer activists plan to put another measure on thestatewide ballot in 2002 (see Daily GPI, Nov. 30).

“As California policymakers learned to their dismay, theinterstate market is critical to electricity competition,” saidMark Cooper, CFA’s research director in Washington. “Stateofficials who decide to deregulate before an effective interstatemarket exists must accept responsibility wherever a market failureoccurs.”

The CFA/CU report recommended four policy areas that needattention before electric deregulation can move forward:

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