Regulators

If legislators and energy regulators aren’t careful, theelectricity industry could end up as a deregulated monopoly ratherthan one that offers customers real choice, representatives of keyelectricity trade groups warned last week.

The way one observer sees it, Oklahoma Natural Gas and ONEOK GasTransportation can ask for whatever they want in their jointrestructuring filing with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission(OCC); they won’t get everything. “It’s a pretty bold proposal. Ican tell you, ONG’s not going to get what they filed for. If you’reasking for something, you might as well ask for the moon,” said thesource, who asked to be anonymous.

California regulators have approved the $6.6 billion merger ofPacific Enterprises and Enova Corp., allowing the formation of acompany that will serve 21 million gas and electric consumers inSouthern California. But the merger partners did not get all theyrequested. The CPUC ruled merger savings of $174.9 million must bereturned to ratepayers and savings of $161.5 million returned toshareholders over the five years following completion of the mergerrather than over 10 years