Rewiring the Electric Industry
Rewiring the Electric Industry Irwin M. Stelzer's piece on what's at stake in the restructuring of the $200 billion electric-utility industry short-circuits the interests of two key stakeholder...
...16) was sensitive, clear, compelling, and beautifully written...
...But I wouldn't want your readers to miss this valuable example of feminist principle and sisterly solidarity expressed at that memorable luncheon...
...You know, so I was willing to go with Anita Hill...
...Industrial users, the so-called "big dogs," are already leveraging their size and power usage to negotiate lower prices and better service...
...In fact, the debts and contractual obligations that would put those utilities incurring them into a serious competitive disadvantage (if no transition period is included in a deregulation plan) are largely the fruit of decisions forced on the industry by U.S...
...He surely exaggerates the canonical status of Michael Scammell's 1984 biography of Solzhenitsyn...
...Actually, public support didn't grow until months after the event, when Thomas had necessarily fallen silent as Hill's supporters raged on...
...I regret only that he is no longer alive to enjoy it...
...I believe Bottum's powerful and convincing review may help Cunningham receive a more respected and appropriate place in literary history...
...Milton Bins, Chairman Faye M. Anderson, President Douglass Policy Institute Washington, DC Irwin M. Stelzer is to be congratulated for a generally fair and clear overview of the advantages of electric-utility deregulation and the obstacles standing in its way...
...So you know, bless little Monica...
...Everyone is a Democrat, as am I. Nonetheless, I have not spoken to one neighbor who did not consider the Clintons and their ilk a disgrace...
...Meanwhile, the states are moving to solve transition problems and to give electricity customers the benefits of competition at the retail level...
...Whereas I don't want Clinton out of there...
...Yet despite his genuine admiration for Solzhenitsyn's courageous and intransigent witness against Communist totalitarianism, Thomas cannot finally appreciate Solzhenitsyn as a writer because he shares the modernist assumption that art deals with an independent aesthetic realm, a world of idiosyncratic experience that bows before no God or Reality other than the "creativity" of the artist...
...And, rather than write new mandates, Congress ought to get out of the way and let the marketplace take its course...
...Mark Stahlman New York, NY...
...Therefore, these government-driven decisions cannot be dismissed as offhandedly as some would propose, like our friend Rep...
...However, he appears to accept the argument that the so-called "stranded costs" with which utilities could be stuck under some plans are the simple residue of bad management decisions...
...It is quite true, as he suggests, that any real deregulation will require some congressional action...
...Stelzer touches on this, but then seems rather cavalierly to dismiss those of us who support a state-based effort...
...But it does not follow that Congress should have primary responsibility for coming up with a comprehensive national scheme that ignores the differences among the states...
...In a competitive electric-power marketplace, not all classes of customers will be equal...
...Greco's audience must indeed be unique...
...That done, Congress ought to clear away the regulatory and statutory underbrush that stands in the way of the states...
...He rightly suggests that Solzhenitsyn's political sensibility is that of a Russian patriot who opposes nationalism and imperialism, an admirer of local self-government who thinks that democracy needs to be firmly rooted in a sense of "Christian responsibility and self-discipline...
...Carol Iannone New York, NY Cunningham Remembered J. Bottum's essay "America's Best Forgotten Poet" (Feb...
...I would like to add two caveats to Jacobs's otherwise admirable review...
...An appreciation of what is now occurring at the state level is essential to any understanding of the future prospects for electric-utility deregulation...
...It pleases me greatly that J.V Cunningham, thanks to Bottum, is receiving at last some of the critical attention and praise he so richly deserves...
...David a Keene, Steven Merrill Co-Chairmen Craig Shirley, Consulting Director Citizens for State Power Alexandria, VA Feminist Foolery Ienjoyed David Brooks's article about the outrageous things spoken in favor of Clinton by 10 women brought together by the New York Observer to discuss the sex scandal ("Monica Envy," Feb...
...Deregulation has reportedly unleashed consumer fraud and false advertising...
...Thomas also refutes the tendentious claim that Solzhenitsyn is somehow an anti-Semite...
...Upon reading it, I realized that A.E...
...The delay in the roll-out of retail competition in California is a cautionary tale about what happens when politicians don't get it right, and when unsuspecting and uninformed consumers are left to the tender mercies of the free market...
...Housman's poetry essentially is that of surging emotion...
...If Congress does these things, the states will move even faster than they are moving now...
...Jacobs is absolutely right that all of Solzhenitsyn's "art," whether novelistic, autobiographical, or documentary in character, entails a search for truth...
...Wellsburg, WV My Country 'Tis of Me William Tucker writes that I am "a one-time soldier for Lyndon LaRouche who is now Silicon Alley's unofficial press agent" ("New York City, Economic Backwater," Jan...
...Let's remember this the next time the feminists grow hot with outrage at some perceived offense...
...J.A McCreary Sr...
...Such a federal model has not worked in countless instances over the past four decades...
...As Congress takes on the challenge of unplugging the electric utilities' local monopoly franchises, deregulation should not leave in its wake defrauded and disillusioned consumers who are, after all, still reeling from the unrealized promises of deregulating the telecommunications industry...
...Scammell's biography played no small part in authorizing the legend that Solzhenitsyn is a mean-spirited anti-democrat, a political reactionary, a Russian nationalist, etc...
...Others are planning to do so over the next few years as they move toward deregulation...
...It is critical that Congress move ahead carefully in order to ensure that all customers share in the benefits of deregulation, such as customer choice, new services and products, and technological innovation...
...Even though I thought, you know, what's the big deal about someone making a joke about pubic hair on your Coke can . . . who cares about that...
...Jay Bergman New Britain, CT Ihave just read with immense enjoyment J. Bottum's review of J.V Cunningham's poetry...
...The lessons learned in the 16 states that are in various phases of reforming the electricity enterprise should guide lawmakers in their deliberations...
...Rewiring the Electric Industry Irwin M. Stelzer's piece on what's at stake in the restructuring of the $200 billion electric-utility industry short-circuits the interests of two key stakeholder groups: residential and small-business customers ("Power Play," Feb...
...Cunningham, by contrast, is pure intellect, emotionalized by our conditioned (or perhaps inherent) response to poetic form and rhythm...
...Thomas's new biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn is a wonderfully balanced appreciation of the life and thought of that much misunderstood (and maligned) writer ("God and the Gulag," Feb...
...While the interests of politicians, utility companies and their shareholders, power marketers, and federal and state regulators (and, to a lesser extent, environmentalists) dominate the policy debate, residential and small-business customers are in the dark about the changes in an industry that's vital to their health, safety, economic well-being, and quality of life...
...presidents, Congress, and government regulators...
...One of the great strengths of Thomas's biography, by contrast, is that he sets the record straight on this score...
...Robert M. Davies Wilmington, DE Voice in the Wilderness Alan Jacobs's review of D.M...
...It has been our position from the beginning that Congress ought to get rid of the monsters it has created—like the Tennessee Valley Authority and federal power marketing authorities...
...Though not an English major, and lacking any particular aptitude for poetry or literary criticism, I found the man's erudition and uncommon eloquence absolutely riveting...
...Prose: "Because none of it's clean...
...It's an exchange between Katie Roiphe and Francine Prose: Roiphe: "Why did public opinion overwhelmingly support Anita Hill, whereas Monica Lewinsky nobody has any sympathy for...
...Daniel J. Mahoney Worcester, MA Dems See the Blight Like Ray Greco, I too "live in the northern tip of West Virginia" (Jay Nordlinger, Casual, Feb...
...Tom DeLay...
...I have never been a "soldier" for anyone or anything—other than our Constitution and the Republic for which it stands...
...I mean, I wanted Clarence Thomas out of there...
...Some, like New Hampshire and California, are dealing with them right now...
...This book is marred by a complete lack of empathy as regards his deepest moral and political convictions...
...Stranded costs are distributed very unevenly among utilities in different states, and each state tends to view them differently...
...In the absence of an objective consumer-education campaign, adequate consumer safeguards, and citizen involvement, many residential and small-business customers who typically don't know a megawatt from a megamall will get the shock of their lives when they discover that their new electricity provider may not be qualified to deliver the juice...
...It is reasonable to expect that they will, in turn, put the squeeze on elected officials who championed retail competition, and then failed to get it right...
...And diverse paths will converge to create a national free market, with all the attendant benefits...
...Congress will continue to talk about a national deregulatory regime—a sort of one-size-fits-all plan that ignores the vast differences in electric markets in various states...
...Wrong on both counts...
...As an undergraduate at Brandeis many years ago, I took one course with J.V Cunningham...
...In my view, Thomas's fair-minded presentation of Solzhenitsyn's political views is enough to make his book a major contribution to Solzhenitsyn scholarship...
Vol. 3 • March 1998 • No. 25
