The Commission issued two Policy Statements this week adopting many recommendations of NEM. The Statements pertain to further steps toward competition in retail energy markets and utility rate unbundling.

The Policy Statement on Retail Competition announces the Commission's vision statement for the markets and states that, "The provision of safe, adequate, and reliable gas and electric service at just and reasonable prices is the primary goal. Competitive markets, where feasible, are the preferred means of promoting efficient energy services, and are well suited to deliver just and reasonable prices, while also providing customers with the benefit of greater choice, value and innovation. Regulatory involvement will be tailored to reflect the competitiveness of the market." The Policy Statement discusses near and long term measures to accelerate migration for different customer classes such as auction pilot programs, utility purchase of receivables, exposing larger customers to spot market pricing, utility migration incentives and aggregation.

The Policy Statement also discusses the utility exit from the merchant function when a significant amount of migration occurs and numerous ESCO offerings are present for a customer class, phasing out of utility hedging practices, possible publication of terms and conditions of utility long term supply contracts, utility and ESCO pipeline capacity practices, providing for utility economic development rates for transmission and distribution service only after a phase-in period, phase out of utility fixed rate commodity tariffs or tariffs creating a profit center for commodity sales, exempting anti-competitive utility conduct from the state action defense, and refinements to utility bill format to better permit price comparisons.

The full texts of the Policy Statement on Retail Competition and the Policy Statement on Unbundling are available on the NEM Website.

RG&E filed a settlement proposal on a purchase of receivables program. By the terms of the proposal RG&E would purchase receivables without recourse during the period January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2008. Marketers electing utility consolidated billing would be required to sell their receivables to RG&E. The discount rate for RG&E's electric program will be .61%, and the discount rate for RG&E's gas program will be 1.99%. RG&E's payments to marketers will be made twenty days after consolidated bills are issued via wire transfer. RG&E will have the right to terminate residential customer service for failure to pay for utility delivery and marketer commodity services. The full text of the RG&E Proposal and Notice Soliciting Comments is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission is proposing revisions to its Do Not Call rules to incorporate the national Do Not Call database established by the FCC. Current rules require that competitive suppliers using telephonic enrollment reference the Ohio Commission's Do Not Call list and obtain monthly updates thereto. The Ohio Commission proposes that competitive suppliers must obtain the list of Ohio consumers on the FCC's Do Not Call list and obtain updates every 90 days prior to engaging in telephonic solicitation. Comments are due September 14, 2004, and reply comments are due September 24, 2004. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission is proposing that electric utilities be required to provide retail distribution customer names, account numbers, addresses and load data to competitive electric generation suppliers. The utilities had previously been required to do so at the beginning of the electric choice transition period, and the Commission believes that requiring such information now will encourage a more level playing field between utility affiliates and alternative competitive electric generation suppliers. The information is to be made available in an electronic format that is, "generally accepted for commercial transactions within the private business community." The utilities will be permitted to recover the reasonable costs of compiling and providing the data. Comments on the Commission's proposal are due thirty days after publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.