NEM's Annual Winter Executive Policy, Planning and Development Meeting for 2005 will be held on January 19-20, 2005 at Constellation NewEnergy's offices in Chicago. Many sincere thanks to Katie Papadimitriu and Constellation as well as to Peter Weigand and Ian Carter of Commerce Energy Group for their generosity in offering to host the meeting.

The Winter Executive Committee Meeting is important in many respects. NEM's Executive Committee members establish the association's priorities among states, utilities, issues and positions for NEM's advocacy in 2005. Please use the following hotlinks to view NEM's Issues Lists for the following topics: wholesale issues, retail issues and technology issues.

Issues identified for NEM advocacy in 2005 include: Politically Acceptable Accelerated Migration Timing, Method and Strategies; Consolidated Utility Billing; Consolidated Retailer Billing; Proper Timing, Structure and Purpose of Retail Auctions; as well as the Formation of working groups to develop a portfolio of cost-effective regulatory approaches to accelerate customer migration.

Policy Chairs are requested to sumbit their recommended agenda items to headquarters no later than COB Thursday, December 16, 2004 so that a draft agenda can be circulated by Friday, December 17, 2004. Please use this hotlink to sign up for the event. The attire will be casual and all attempts will be made to get us out in one day.

NEM's Annual Spring Membership Meeting and Restructuring Conference will be held at the Marriott Metro Center on April 26-27, 2005. in Washington, DC. Many thanks to Centrica, Commonwealth Energy, ESG, Excelergy, Interstate Gas Supply, Itron, Proliance and SAP for offering to sponsor this event. Sponsorship ads and logos are due for advertisements as soon as possible. Suggested topics and speakers should also be sent to headquarters no later than Wednesday, December 15, 2004. FERC Chairman Patrick Wood, Commissioners Brownell, Kelly and Kelliher in addition to CA Deputy Secretary of Energy Joseph Desmond, NYPSC Chairman William Flynn and MADTE Chairman Paul Afonso have already confirmed to speak. Governor Schwartzenegger and Chairman Alan Schriber from Ohio, and high-ranking Administration officials have also been invited.

Please use this hotlink to register for the event.

FERC held a technical conference to explore two of the four prongs it uses to determine whether to grant market-based rate authority - vertical/transmission market power and other barriers to entry. Panelists discussed the advantages and disadvantages of behavioral and structural remedies for market power as well as problems such as some transmission owners not being bound by FERC protocols. Several panelists proposed joint planning and joint ownership of transmission while others focused on how inadequate transmission drives competitive suppliers away from certain communities. The full text of NEM's Analysis is available on the NEM web site. A second conference, discussing the other two prongs - affiliate abuse and generation market power - is scheduled for January 27-28, 2005.

The Commission wishes to examine the propriety of its own policy that allows pipelines to adjust their ratemaking throughput downward to reflect discounts given by pipelines for competitive reasons. Under Order 436, pipelines are allowed to discount to meet competition, provided they do so in a non-discriminatory fashion. The Commission wishes to determine how these selective discounts affect the pipeline's captive customers. Likewise, the Commission seeks comments concerning a possible elimination of the discount adjustment in cases for gas-on-gas competition and alternative policy choices that would minimize effects on captive customers. Comments are due by January 31, 2005. The full text of the Notice is available on the NEM web site.

While NYISO has established three demand response programs - emergency demand response program, day-ahead demand response program and installed capacity/special case resources - none of these programs were utilized during the Summer 2004 capability period because of unusually cool weather.

NYISO believes it will face a 3MW deficiency for the Summer 2005 capability period. Likewise, NYISO plans to meet the 77MW shortfall of in-city locational installed capacity by both new units and new Special Case Resources. 2,300MW of capacity, in the form of five previously authorized projects, are scheduled to be in service from fourth quarter 2004 - 2006. However, NYISO expresses concern that net revenues continue to be below the cost of entry for new resources, and plans to continue developing innovative solutions to help developers finance new projects. The full text of the Filing is available on the NEM web site.

In NYISO's compliance filing, it stated that it believed its current customer credit risk policies are appropriate. However, in its continuing efforts to best balance the company's credit risk with its customers credit requirements, it has met with stakeholders on five occasions. To shorten the settlement cycle from a month to a week, NYISO has entered into weekly prepayment agreements with several of its customers. NYISO stakeholders have also approved a tariff amendment that would allow municipal electric systems in New York to aggregate their unsecured credit. NYISO is also developing a provision to lower collateral requirements for virtual transactions. Finally, NYISO's paydown option allows a market participant's collateral requirements to be calculated upon the forthcoming month, rather than on a historical basis, provided that the entity agrees to pay down amounts owed to NYISO on demand. The full text of NYISO's Filing is available on the NEM web site.