How is COMPETE trying to make electricity more competitive?

Having former senator lobbying can help pro-market forces

We can't prove it but we think EPACT 2005 is pro-competitive because of COMPETE, the new lobbying group.
     It had lobbied hard to make it that way at a time when anti-competition forces were hard at work.
     We asked Sen Don Nickles, the former GOP senator from Oklahoma who is COMPETE's chairman.
     Last year's energy bill was so flawed in the electric title that "a lot of us thought:
     "Hey. Wait a minute. We can do a whole lot better. We need to do better if we believe in markets. We want the consumers to save. You want people to have a better buy on something so important. We need to do a better job," Nickles replied.
     "That had a lot to do with it."
     Last year's EPACT version was so anti-competitive that we urged members not to vote for it.
     That version was stridently anti-competitive especially on native load.
     If EPACT 2004 had been enacted two major pro-competition Supreme Court decisions would have been reversed.
     The earlier EPACT favored the incumbent's native load over the native load of its competitors. Industrial power buyers had told us that the 108th Congress version had nothing in it worth supporting.
     COMPETE came along at the right time.
     It started earlier this year with just a few members then by July had reached 68 members by adding big name retail chains such as 7-Eleven and Federated Department Stores, the nation's largest department store chain.
     With that came weight and lobbying power (RT, 7/26).
     Members now include hospitals and school districts, those who benefit from an honest marketplace including large marketers and even utilities such as Reliant.
     "It wasn't easy. It wasn't a given," said Nickles.
     They watch FERC activities to make sure competition isn't injured there and he gives FERC high marks in recent years.
     COMPETE watches state lawmakers and regulators to keep them honest. Right now the group is active in opposing Prop 80 in California.
     Does Nickles see evidence of the enemy in his travels?
     Yes, he does.
     One issue Nickles would like to get fixed is regulatory bodies that aren't talking enough with their neighbors. He'd rather do that with market signals.
     Does Nickles believe that markets have to be competitive first at wholesale?
     "That's where FERC has been coming from," he replied, "as a precursor with some success."
     The agency has taken a lot of flak from Congress and others but "they're moving in the right direction and we encourage that."
     What doesn't Nickles like about EPACT?
     It had too many subsidies for fuels. "You're going to mandate and subsidize? Shouldn't have to do both. And we did both."
     How about revamping Order 888?
     "A qualified yes. It's recognition that the marketplace is moving that way."
     We don't want to take away from the fine lobbying for competition by many other groups such as EPSA especially and NEMA.
     COMPETE doubtless may have put them over the top in saving markets.
     Originally published in Restructuring Today on November 2, 2005