It's time the agencies starting doing their job and looking out for consumer welfare. The last few years have seen 20 some combinations involving huge utilities, and none have been opposed by the antitrust agencies. We must do better than that. Our goal should be reducing rates not just for the major industrial purchasers, but for small residential customers as well. If there is to be any legitimate rationale for deregulation it must begin with the idea that consumers will be made better off.
Transmission is the essential facility' of the electricity business.
Unfortunately, legal and financial barriers make it impossible to provide for meaningful competition in the transmission business. Our job as policy makers therefore must be to make sure that monopoly power in this line of business does not spill over and adversely impact other competitive lines of business. The entire power industry is undergoing an unprecedented wave of merger and acquisition activity. The last thing we would want is to allow deregulation to become an excuse for increased market power. Unless we can be sure that deregulation will not result in increased rates, abuses of market power, or an oligopoly structure, it is not worth pursuing.