Saying that the merger was in the best interest of the public, theOregon Public Utility Commission yesterday approved Sierra PacificResources’ application to acquire Portland General Electric(PGE). Sierra Pacific last year announced it would acquire PGE, awholly owned subsidiary of Enron Corp. for $2.1 billion, excludingdebt (see Daily GPI, Nov. 9, 1999).

“This is a very important milestone in our effort to bring PGEand Sierra Pacific together and obviously, we’re very pleased,”said Peggy Fowler, CEO of PGE. “The ultimate winners are our Oregoncustomers. The agreement assures they can continue to receive thesame level of outstanding service that they have come to expectfrom PGE.”

Under the merger agreement, PGE’s customers will benefit from asix year price freeze and a $95 million credit. The “acquisitioncredit will show up on customers’ bills as soon as the deal closes,and will continue to be evident until Sept. 30, 2007. Under thesettlement, PGE will still retain the right to adjust rates to passon commodity fluctuations.

The merger has already received approval from the U.S. Departmentof Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, but still awaits thego-ahead from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and theSecurities and Exchange Commission. In a July FERC meeting, theCommission found that Sierra and PGE had failed to provide an adequateanalysis of the vertical and horizontal market powereffects. Consequently, FERC set out specific procedures for obtainingadditional information analysis and intervenor input (see Daily GPI,July 27).

PGE provides electricity to approximately 720,000 customers inthe Portland-Salem area.

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