Lower some rates, force others upward and generally change the way we think of our utility bills. Proponents of the deregulation plan, including the administration of Gov. Christie Whitman, say it will reduce energy rates by up to 10 percent while leading to more services and products for customers. Critics also say it could result in more air pollution as cheaper, coal-generated electricity enters the New Jersey market and that urban consumers will literally be left out in the cold as suppliers opt to serve only the more affluent areas of the state.
New Jersey is the latest in a long line of states to begin deregulating energy.
California, New Hampshire, Texas, Minnesota, Massachusetts and others have moved in various ways to introduce competition into the energy market, ending the historic reliance on limited, state-supervised monopolies. It's a direction in which Congress wants to see the electric industry move. Several bills have been proposed that would drastically reorganize the way in which Americans buy electricity, mandating competition nationwide by removing restrictions on selling locally produced energy in other states. The deregulation push began in 1978, when Congress passed the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. That legislation allowed smaller entrepreneurs to experiment with cheaper, and sometimes cleaner, ways to produce electricity.