The Leadership of the NEM Executive Committee has circulated nominations for the National, Regional and State Policy Chairs and Co-Chairs for the coming year. Members wishing to add nominations should contact headquarters ASAP. A special meeting of the Executive Committee is scheduled for the evening of June 19 from 6PM-8PM at the Marriott Metro Center to consider the structure of the Executive Committee and to vote on the nominations. Food and beverages will be served at the meeting. We need RSVPs ASAP.

Senators, FERC, PUC and FTC Commissioners have confirmed for NEM's Annual Membership Meeting and National Restructuring Conference to be held June 20 and 21, 2002, at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington, DC. An updated agenda, registration form and electronic brochure is hotlinked here for your convenience. All Congressional members and Staff of the Conference Committee on the Energy Bill have been invited to the NEM VIP reception to be held on the evening of June 20, 2002, in the Senate Hart Office Building Room SH-216. If you plan to attend the conference and the reception, we need your security information ASAP. Firm headcounts are needed ASAP. If you need help signing up, please call headquarters at 202-333-3288.

NEM's National Restructuring Conference has been refocused to the growing crisis in the energy and financial markets. NEM's Risk Valuation, Management and Financial Accountability Task Force will be developing guidelines and a code of conduct to address the credit, risk and financial issues facing the industry in the wake of Enron, and the preliminary findings of the Taskforce will be reviewed at the Conference.

The Taskforce is seeking widespread expertise on the issues in the same manner that the Derivatives Policy Group brought together diverse interests to address the OTC derivatives controversy of the 1990s in a manner that ensures maximum credibility with investors, rating agencies and regulators. NEM believes that its policy development process should develop into the same bipartisan Presidential-level Commission that addressed the derivatives issues.

Many thanks to Lee Taylor, Harry Fry, Mike Walker, Bob Young, Kim Detiveaux, Dennis Sobieski, Mike Prokop, Ron Lukas, Trip Ray, Gordon Allott, Ray O'Connor, Paul Messerschmidt, Jennifer Feinstein, Sarah Althoff and Greg Towstego for their assistance with this project.

A final working session of the Master Netting Working Group will be held on June 24, 2002, at a location to be determined. A revised draft of the MNA has been prepared, and comments on the draft are due by June 21, 2002, to elopez@reliant.com and drusso@reliant.com. It is expected that a final version of the MNA will be introduced on July 1, 2002. The full texts of the Revised MNA Draft (Clean) and Revised MNA Draft (Redlined) are available on the NEM Website.

Many thanks to Dede Russo, Marty-Jo Rogers, Chris Bernard, Vince Duane and others for their leadership and hard work on this important project.

The next meeting of the NAESB Wholesale Electric Quadrant will be held in Columbus, Ohio and will be hosted by AEP. The meeting will take place on June 20 and 21, 2002. The purpose of the meeting is to confirm segment definitions, discuss sub-segments and discuss the number of seats on the Board and Executive Committee for the WEQ. A subsequent meeting may be scheduled for July 15 and 16, 2002, to confirm decisions made at the June meeting.

The Commission issued an Order to Show Cause why market-based rate authority should not be revoked to El Paso, Williams, Portland, and Avista in connection with the Enron investigation. The Order was issued because FERC believed the companies had failed to cooperate with the investigation by providing incomplete or inconsistent answers to the data requests pertaining to Enron's trading strategies. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

Pursuant to Commission Order, PJM submitted a report on its seasonal capacity commitment structure, opposed by NEM, whereby load-serving entities must procure generation resources under a seasonal commitment, the capacity deficiency charge is assessed based on an interval calculation, and generation owners are required to commit excess capacity for an entire season in order to receive capacity deficiency charges collected from LSEs. PJM urges that the present structure remain in place and reports that stakeholders are continuing to try to develop an alternative method to assure long-term capacity adequacy. The full text of PJM's Report is available on the NEM Website.

The previously scheduled conference on data and software needs in connection with the Commission's standard market design rule has been rescheduled to July 18, 2002, at 9:30 AM. The purpose of the conference is to discuss what should be standardized, if there should be a standard data model, developing data sets to benchmark the needed software, and the need for user-friendly, transparent interfaces. The full text of the Notice of Conference is available on the NEM Website.