ComEd submitted rebuttal testimony in its POR case opposing certain Staff proposals, specifically: "(1) replacing the proposed $0.50 per bill charge for the recovery of PORCB implementation and administration costs with a 0.68% charge; (2) imposing a December 31, 2011 cutoff date on capital investments; and (3) reducing the return on capital investments recovered through the rider." ComEd opposed moving away from the $0.50 per bill charge for a number of reasons, including its argument that such a fixed per bill charge should not be assumed to discourage marketers from signing up low usage customers even though such charge would represent a larger portion of the customer's bill. Importantly, ComEd argued that the uncertainty created by Staff's proposal caused it to delay the go live date for Rider PORCB from December 1, 2010, to no later than April 1, 2011. The full text of ComEd's Rebuttal Testimony is available on the NEM Website.

The electric utilities filed a joint proposal for the BGS competitive bidding process for the period beginning June 1, 2011. The utilities propose to continue the use of a multiple round descending clock auction for supply procurement. The BGS-FP (Fixed Price) product would continue to be procured on a three-year rolling portfolio and the BGS-CIEP (Commercial Industrial Energy Pricing) product would continue to be procured on an annual basis. The utilities also propose a schedule for approval of their BGS proposal and conduct of the auctions. Utility-specific addenda have also been filed. All of these BGS documents are available at: http://www.bgs-auction.com/bgs.auction.regproc.asp

NEM submitted comments in the Board's recently opened proceeding to review the Retail Margin currently charged to BGS-CIEP customers and the CIEP threshold. NEM opposed the elimination of the retail margin. NEM reiterated that the original purpose of the retail margin was to be a proxy for marketing and administrative expenses incurred by competitive marketers to serve migrating customers. These, by their very nature, are on-going costs and should continue to be included in BGS pricing. By comparison, the utilities in New York utilize a Merchant Function Charge that works similarly to provide consumers with a basis to compare utility default service and competitive market offerings. And, regardless of the state of market development, marketers will continue to incur costs to serve choice customers over and above just the pure commodity rate just as does the utility to provide default service. To eliminate the retail margin would therefore inaccurately skew the information that consumers utilize in comparing marketer offerings and the utility rate. NEM also noted the regulatory uncertainty attendant with proposals to make significant structural changes to BGS that would dissuade marketers from entering the New Jersey market and make long-term plans to serve such customers. The full text of NEM's Comments is available on the NEM Website.

NEM filed comments on the working group reports and issues raised in the UBP Phase 2 proceeding. NEM urged that in the case of the marketers’ requested relief in the ESCO Referral at Service Initiation, Utility Initiated Drops, Customer Lists and Provision of Tax Data Working Groups, that the resolutions sought represent logical, next step market reforms that will contribute significantly to the continued evolution of the competitive marketplace. NEM opposed requiring independent third party verification of customer telephonic enrollments. NEM supported the straw proposal on contract renewals that provides that a consumer would not be required to provide affirmative consent to a contract renewal in the instance where the only change to the contract is the price term. In the case of a material change to any other contract term, the consumer’s affirmative consent would be required. NEM suggested in the case of single retailer model that the utility should consider deferring the assessment of a deposit until the utility has obtained its own credit information about a customer either (1) based on past payment history and/or experience with that customer going forward or (2) via commercially available credit reporting. NEM reiterated its proposal to revise the UBP to include a provision on utility CSRs competitively neutral communications with customers. The full text of NEM's Comments are available on the NEM Website.