ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 19, 1997 TAG: 9704210053
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: AKWELI PARKER LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
STAFF WRITER JEFF STURGEON CONTRIBUTED TO THIS REPORT.
The industry disagrees on whether households would save big on their monthly electricity bills.
Friday's congressional hearing on power industry deregulation was a circus of bleating cell phones, jockeying lobbyists, and nail-biting power executives.
House Commerce Committee Chairman Tom Bliley, R-Va., and Energy and Power Subcommittee Chairman Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., are leading the charge to break up power industry monopolies, which have stood for 60 years. If the monopolies go, American households will save 15 percent to 43 percent monthly, those leaders say.
Skeptics counter that consumers likely won't see those savings and that some will pay more for power. The debate, it seems, is not whether competition will come, but when.
Groups who weren't invited to speak inside took their message outdoors. One consumer activist group had a plane fly over the Henrico County Government Center, where the hearing took place, with a banner reading ``Citizens for a Sound Economy.''
A legion of brawny workmen from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers also came to spread the word - they oppose a federally legislated, blanket move to industry competition. They said that would prompt power companies to cut costs, fire workers and sacrifice the reliability of the power grid.
Close to two-thirds of the panelists who spoke before the committee supported federal legislation to bring about retail competition in the $200 billion-a-year electric power industry. Wholesale competition, which involves the sale of big blocks of power to municipalities, regional co-ops and other large customers, is already here.
The big winners of such ``retail wheeling,'' say supporters, will be consumers. ``Injecting competition in a mature, stodgy industry will benefit consumers,'' said Jim Rogers, CEO of Cinergy Corp., a Cincinnati-based power company that's bidding to supply electricity to several Western Virginia localities.
Consumer groups worry that competition at the consumer level would hurt residential customers, as power companies chase big industrial customers with low prices while making homeowners subsidize them. Under traditional monopolies among power companies, commercial customers subsidize residential rates.
But Rogers said that residential loads bring in bigger profits and that power marketers would actually fight for their business.
Electric Consumers Alliance, which represents 180 consumer, business and government organizations, released a poll saying 69 percent of Virginians were in favor of having the state deregulate utilities while 20 percent thought the federal government would do a better job.
Virginia Power Vice President of Public Affairs Eva Teig joked to the committee, ``I think I should have brought a bullet-proof shield to put in front of me, but I left it at home.''
She could have used it - at one point engaging in a sparring match with Schaefer over the company's rock-bottom power contract with the Navy.
Virginia Power isn't against competition, she said, but it is against Congress ramming through legislation before the individual states are ready.
``I would urge you and your colleagues to avoid rushing to judgment,'' she told the panel.
American Electric Power Co. this month filed a list of possible steps for giving its Western Virginia customers a choice of power companies.
LENGTH: Medium: 72 linesby CNB