ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997 TAG: 9704240047
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-13 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Particularly popular as lobbyists are those tied closely to congressional leaders.
The titans of America's electric power industry are generating heat of a different sort on Capitol Hill, a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort over plans to let consumers choose where they buy electricity.
The campaign to deregulate the industry pits power-producing giants eager for new business, such as Houston-based Enron, against traditional utilities, such as Commonwealth Edison and Southern Co., which have enjoyed virtual monopolies in their markets for decades.
While the fight ostensibly is about consumer choice and lower prices, some worry that consumers might be trampled as industry behemoths struggle over shares of the $208 billion-a-year market.
Last year, two dozen of the top combatants spent $32 million lobbying in Washington, disclosure reports show. Millions more are being poured into research, polling, television advertising and stirring up grass-roots action.
Through their trade association, the Edison Electric Institute, utility companies have been in a lobbyist-hiring frenzy. Much of the $11.1 million the association spent on lobbying last year went to influence the deregulation question.
Particularly popular as lobbyists are those tied closely to congressional leaders.
Former Rep. Vin Weber was retained for his ability to gain access to Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and other House GOP leaders. Former Rep. Dennis Eckart was hired for his ties to Democratic colleagues, mainly those on the House Commerce Committee, dealing with electricity restructuring. Former GOP Chairman Haley Barbour also has come on board Edison Electric Institute.
``Their job is to get through to people we don't normally go to,'' said Mary Kenkel, a spokeswoman for the trade group.
She said utilities, traditionally regulated by states, fear suddenly throwing open the industry to unfettered competition could damage them, in part because some have high fixed costs from past investment in nuclear power plants. The institute's deregulation lobbying is financed by a special assessment on its utility members amounting to $3.8 million a year, she said.
``It is a massive undertaking to change this industry, and it's incumbent on us to make sure it is changed correctly because everybody's affected by electricity,'' Kenkel said.
Some of that money went to fly two senior Commerce Committee members - Chairman Thomas Bliley of Richmond, Va., and Dennis Hastert of Illinois, both Republicans - and at least seven House aides to Arizona in January for meetings on the subject. The travel, permitted under House gift rules, cost $14,700, disclosure reports show.
The push for deregulation is being coordinated at meetings every Monday at the offices of the National Retail Federation, the hub of a huge coalition dubbed ``Americans for Affordable Electricity.'' The coalition - which includes power generators, energy-consuming industries like autos and chemicals, and commercial and residential users - was formed partly at the behest of congressional Republicans fighting for deregulation.
The group is at least matching the spending of the utilities, said head lobbyist John Motley of the retailers' trade group. On top of a budget that may reach $4 million, each coalition member donates the time of its public relations experts, lobbyists, lawyers and policy experts.
An example is an advertising campaign by Enron costing upwards of $20 million. Enron and companies like it produce electricity for wholesale to standard utilities, but they want to get into retail sales as well. Its television spots, which Motley said help make the case for deregulation, were seen in Atlanta last week just before congressional field hearings.
Motley has formed task forces to deal with the news media, to lobby lawmakers directly, to coordinate grass-roots lobbying and to draft technical papers. Motley himself was meeting this week with Bliley and other GOP leaders to map out battle plans and timing. They hope to push the issue to the House floor by this fall.
A new study of deregulation illustrates just how much political money is involved. The primary sponsor of deregulation legislation, Rep. Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., reaped a bonanza of campaign money after becoming chairman of the Commerce subcommittee that controls the issue.
The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics found that Schaefer received $126,000 from electric power interests in the last two-year election cycle, a tenfold increase from the two previous years before he became chairman.
Schaefer's bill would require states to formulate plans for competitive electric service for all consumers or to have the federal government do it for them before Jan. 1, 2001.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB