Proliance and their law firm, Krieg Devault LLP, have generously offered to host our Summer Executive Committee Meeting and Policy Leadership Elections on July 29 and 30, 2008, in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana. Please register for the meeting at this hotlink.

NEM has a courtesy room block until July 5, 2008, at the Embassy Suites at a discounted rate of $139/night. You must make your reservations by dialing them directly at (317) 236-1923 at your earliest convenience as they will release the rooms after the July 5 date, and the costs may increase. The location of the hotel is 110 West Washington Street in downtown Indy, 3 blocks from the meeting place.

There is no charge to attend this meeting. Please help us thank John Talley, President, and Kyle Hupfer, General Counsel, of Proliance as well as Steve Sherman, Proliance's outside counsel and founding member of NEM for their generosity in hosting this meeting.

The Meeting will start between 9 and 10AM on Tuesday morning, July 29th, and adjourn before noon on Wednesday, July 30, 2008. An agenda and draft leadership nominations will be circulated, and each member is requested to forward nominations for policy leadership positions as well as issues that NEM must address and prioritize for the coming year.

The Summer Executive Committee Meeting is where the Executive Committee members agree on mid course corrections on the priorities for NEM advocacy for the remainder of 2008 and members who wish to sponsor upcoming events give us an indication so we may start planning the meetings and events for the remainder of 2008 and 2009.

If you have questions or would like to help plan or co-sponsor an event for the members, please contact headquarters. The upcoming meeting should be very substantive, and your participation is encouraged and would be appreciated.

The National Energy Marketers Association (NEM) is pleased to announce that Customer Acquisition Specialists of America, Inc. (CASA) has rejoined the Association. CASA will be represented within NEM by Jim Mathers, President.

CASA is dedicated to procuring quality customers for its clients in the natural gas & electricity markets. They use an independent company for a third party digitally recorded verification of each account that is signed up or they accept signed contracts. They monitor their sales reps closely to maintain high quality calls and to ensure proper client representation. Included in their system is the ability for the client to remotely monitor any outgoing phone calls.

CASA has successfully signed up residential and commercial utility customers for clients in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Texas, California, Connecticut, Florida and Georgia. CASA has enrolled over 2.5 million customers over the past 10 years, including over 500,000 commercial energy customers.

CASA’s mission is to be the most effective Inside Sales & Customer service team available to the energy marketing industry. To support that mission, the owners bring over thirty years of sales experience to their clients. CASA’s ability to tap into the mass market and attract energy consumers to choose a new supplier in the deregulated markets is a proven commodity. CASA focuses its talents in one direction: acquiring energy customers in high quality at the desired volume. By employing well-trained representatives and using proven inbound and outbound sales & customer service techniques, they achieve that goal on a daily basis using both Inbound & Outbound Telesales.

EIA proposed a three-year extension of its form EIA-910, Monthly Natural Gas Marketer Survey as well as three changes to the form as follows: 1) LDC-level reporting of customer count, volume and revenue data, as opposed to the state-level reporting that is currently required; 2) inclusion of data reporting for the states of Alaska, California, Maine, Oklahoma, and Wyoming and discontinuance of reporting for the states of Massachusetts and Michigan; and 3) collection of volume data only in Mcf, rather than therms or Mcf. NEM submitted comments opposing the proposed changes. NEM argued that the changes would significantly increase the reporting burden and compliance costs. It would also entail revealing commercially sensitive information. NEM noted that discrepancies between marketer volumes reported on EIA-910 versus volumes transported on account of marketers shown by LDCs on EIA-857 may be due a number of factors which the move to LDC reporting would not cure. NEM recommended that information continue to be reportable in therms because of the difficulties associated with converting transactional information from therms to Mcf alone. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.

After NEM submitted its comments, EIA requested that we convene a conference call with interested members to discuss the proposed changes, focusing in particular on the change from the current state-level reporting to LDC-level reporting. The call with EIA will take place Tuesday, June 10 at 11AM EST. Prior to that NEM will convene a brief pre-call of interested members to organize our approach. The pre-call will be held Monday, June 9 at 10AM EST. A company must participate in the member pre-call in order to participate in the EIA call. The EIA June 10 dial-in info will only be distributed to those companies. For the June 9 pre-call, use the dial-in 913-643-5111 and passcode 209353.

DOE is requesting comments in preparation for its 2009 Electric Transmission Congestion Study. DOE requests that stakeholders address changes in their respective areas since 2005 that impact the location, duration, frequency, magnitude and significance of transmission congestion and related constraints, with an emphasis on how to assess the amount of congestion using publicly available data. Additionally, DOE requests comments on methods for distinguishing between the effects of technical limits on line loadings as well as contractual limits on using those same lines. In recognition that commenters may wish to draw on studies that are currently in progress, DOE requests submissions as they become available but no later than December 31, 2008.

DOE will also convene six regional technical workshops to receive input on the 2009 Congestion Study. Workshops are scheduled in San Francisco (June 11), Oklahoma City (June 18), Hartford (July 9), Atlanta (July 24), Las Vegas (August 6) and Chicago (September 17). The workshops will also be simulcast over the internet. The full text of the Request for Comments and Notice of Workshops is available on the NEM Website.

The Administration's National Science and Technology Council released a report entitled, "Scientific Assessment of the Effects of Global Change on the United States." Drawing upon previous work in numerous research reports, the assessment states that, "most of the recent global warning is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations." The Report details an expected increase in warming in North America, increased winter precipitation in the northern U.S. and decreased summer precipitation in the southern U.S., continued decrease in snow cover, and continued rise in global sea level amongst other effects. The Report also details expected impacts of climate change on agriculture, land resources, biodiversity and human health. The full text of the Assessment is available on the NEM Website.

A group of state Commissions, consumer advocates and large consumers denominating themselves the "RPM Buyers" filed a complaint with FERC alleging that PJM's Reliability Pricing Model (RPM), as implemented through the transitional Base Residual Auctions, produced unjust and unreasonable capacity prices for the delivery period from June 1, 2008, through May 31, 2011, and refunds for RPM collections in excess of just and reasonable rates should be required. RPM Buyers argue that three factors primarily contributed to these rates: 1) a lack of price discipline because of a lack of competition from new capacity resources; 2) the ability of existing resources to exercise market power by withholding capacity to increase prices; and 3) the additional opportunity for sellers to raise prices caused by RPM's locational component. RPM Buyers estimate a $26.2 billion valuation for capacity during the transitional period which they allege results from an auction producing, "no more than an enormous and unwarranted wealth transfer from customers in the PJM region to existing capacity resources." The full text of the RPM Buyers Complaint is available on the NEM Website.