Efforts

In the view of local distribution companies, standardization canbe a good thing if it streamlines business practices. However,standardization efforts that ignore the uniqueness of individualLDCs, their customers and the states and markets they operate inare unacceptable. LDCs’ view of GISB and its standards is onereason cited for flagging LDC involvement in the standardsorganization.

Almost a third of gas and oil companies surveyed expect to havecompleted Year-2000 (Y2K) remediation by the end of the year,according to the results of a new survey by the Natural Gas Council(NGC). It further found that 73% said they would be ready by June1999, while all respondents indicated they would be prepared byDecember 1999.

While efforts to deregulate the electric industry at both thestate and federal level drag on, at least one internationalobserver found U.S. gas deregulation worthy of praise. RobertPriddle, executive director of the International Energy Agency(IEA) in Paris, told reporters at the 17th Congress of the WorldEnergy Council that the United States leads the world in gascompetition.

While efforts to deregulate the electric industry at both thestate and federal level drag on, at least one internationalobserver found U.S. gas deregulation worthy of praise. RobertPriddle, executive director of the International Energy Agency(IEA) in Paris, told reporters at the 17th Congress of the WorldEnergy Council that the United States leads the world in gascompetition. Priddle said he is heartened by the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission’s (FERC) decision to review pipeline rateregulation. Priddle gave his talk to highlight findings of theIEA’s report card on U.S. energy policy. The findings stem from a1998 review and are published by the agency in a 152-page book.

Enron’s announcement last week that it will be terminating itsresidential power marketing efforts in several states should be awake up call for the gas industry as well, where the pace of changetoward retail competition has been a disappointment for manyobservers.