The increase asked for by MPC recently will only return rates to the level experienced prior to deregulation. This portion will stiff be regulated in spite of the sale of these assets by MPC and costs of the assets will remain the same in the eyes of the regulators. That means that individual consumers will not have to negotiate for their power individually unless that is their choice. It is expected that this default provider will be the primary supplier to MPC customers after July 2002. I believe deregulation is almost certain to reduce future power bills if only because it will make it impossible to burden consumers with stranded costs in the future and will eventually retire those they are paying now.
Competition is a cost reducing consideration in any industry.
We will always have an advantage in securing power from inexpensive sources like the hydropower generated on the Missouri and Columbia basins because of shorter transmission distances. Transmission and delivery are 75 percent of the cost and will continue to be regulated. Both are well qualified justices. Karla Gray is the better qualified to be chief justice. As a retired district court judge, I have read many of the decisions of the Supreme Court of Montana in which both justices participated, either as the author of the court's opinion or as concurring in the decision or dissenting from it.