DATE: Saturday, April 5, 1997               TAG: 9704050245

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   42 lines

DEREGULATION LIKELY TO GO AT OWN PACE

For years, power companies have been holding their collective breath over coming changes in their business.

But if pundits are right about the Clinton administration's electric deregulation bill, utilities may finally get to exhale.

Although the bill's details are still being tinkered with, it will most likely let states deregulate at their own pace.

Energy Secretary Federico Pena said the administration is putting finishing touches on its bill and will try to release it within a month, according to Bloomberg News.

``It's important to respect the expertise and work of states and their entities,'' Pena said this week.

His and earlier statements by Department of Energy officials have leaned toward state rule instead of federal mandates on deregulation.

A number of politicians, including Richmond-area Republican and House Commerce Committee chairman Thomas Bliley, have championed a quicker, federally imposed move to retail competition, saying it would benefit consumers.

Regardless of who imposes the changes, a deregulated industry would allow residential customers to shop around for power. A number of states, including Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and California, already permit such retail competition.

``The electric system in this country is one of the best in the world with among the lowest prices,'' said Linda Schoumacher of the Edison Electric Institute, an industry association.

To keep it that way through the transition to a free-market landscape, she said states must be allowed to chart their own way, rather than enforce a one-size-fits-all federal mandate.

The danger in that, said Virginia Power spokesman Bill Byrd, is potential chaos when different utilities try to mesh their incompatible power networks. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

Energy Secretary Federico Pena leans toward state rule instead of

federal mandates on deregulation.

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