JULY 22, 1999

This is an appropriate and convenient time to hold legislative hearings on various bills pending in the House which relate to electric restructuring. The breadth of these proposals underscores the complexity of the issues at hand, and the witness list indicates the number of parties with a keen interest in the Committee’s considerations.

It should be noted, as well, that this is the first hearing since Chairman Bliley and Chairman Barton released an outline of their own joint legislative proposal. Since this

proposal appears to reflect concepts embodied in the bills noticed for this hearing, today’s testimony is particularly timely. I understand that Chairman Barton also plans to hold a separate hearing on the legislative language for his and Chairman Bliley’s joint proposal, which is an excellent idea.

If the goal of legislation is to achieve something other than mandating competition, the question remains: should Congress enact restructuring legislation and for what purpose? Is the goal to provide federally "managed competition" for this industry, to direct or redirect competitive forces set free by the states? Does this mean that FERC must play the role of manager? Should state jurisdiction over the transmission system be preempted in order to "clarify" state-federal jurisdiction? If so, how would this work in states which choose not to adopt retail competition for the foreseeable future? And of course, the question remains – at what cost would such federal "reforms" be secured as events play out in the political arena and other legislative issues come to the fore?