Please mark your calendar for NEM's winter meeting to be held in Houston, Texas on January 17 and 18, 2001. Chris Bernard of Entergy-Koch and Tami Pallas of CMS MS&T have generously offered to sponsor the winter meeting. Please also mark your calendar for April 2 and 3, 2002, (PLEASE NOTE: the April dates have been changed) the Annual Membership Meeting and National Restructuring Conference, that will be held at the Marriott Metro Center in Washington, DC. Please contact NEM headquarters if you are interested in speaking, sponsorship or table-top space at the conference.

FERC issued an ANOPR seeking comments on a standard generator interconnection agreement and procedures that would be applicable to all public utilities that own, operate or control transmission facilities under the Federal Power Act. FERC is considering basing the standard interconnection agreement and procedures on the "Standard Generator Interconnection Agreement and Generation Interconnection Procedure" of ERCOT to be supplemented by certain best practices. These best practices are in the areas of comparable treatment, offering generators multiple interconnection products, exemptions for small generators, queuing procedures, generator deposits, generation siting, and project timelines. FERC indicated it wanted a consensus procedure to be used, the details of which will be forthcoming, whereby participants will file a single document reflecting consensus and disagreement areas on a standard agreement and procedures by December 14, 2001. The consensus areas will form the basis of the subsequent NOPR. FERC indicated that the issues of cost responsibility and pricing will be addressed in a subsequent rulemaking. Comments on the ANOPR are due December 21, 2001. The full text of the ANOPR, the ERCOT Standard Generation Interconnection Agreement, and ERCOT Standard Generation Interconnection Procedures are available on the NEM Website.

The Commission approved the Central Hudson settlement providing back-out credits of 4 mills for SC1 residential and SC2 general and non-demand customers and 2 mills for SC2 demand customers. Central Hudson will be required to reimburse ESCOs for ancillary services charges imposed by NYISO. The Commission also directed the parties to explore the development of advanced pricing and metering offerings to allow customers to receive better price signals. The full text of the Order is available on the NEM Website.

The Commission has ordered the institution of a three year distributed generation pilot program beginning this fall. By the terms of the program, the utilities will evaluate their forecasted distribution requirements and whether their needs can be met through distributed generation. The utilities will issue RFPs for the projects during the 2002-03 planning year. The Commission also approved standby rate guidelines that utilize a more cost-based approach to charging for distribution service than is currently applicable to standby customers. The full text of the Distributed Generation and Standby Rate Orders will be posted on the NEM Website when made available electronically.

Staff filed a statement in support of the proposed NIMO-National Grid merger settlement. Staff urged the adoption of the settlement because it provides for delivery rate reductions, institutes a 2 mill credit for demand metered and residential customers and a 4 mill credit for non-demand metered customers, institutes a distributed generation pilot program, and extends the gas delivery service rate freeze through December 31, 2004. The full text of Staff's Statement is available from NEM headquarters.

ComEd filed surrebuttal testimony in the delivery services proceeding reiterating its arguments for design of delivery service rates and metering and single bill option credits using a marginal cost methodology. The full text of ComEd's Surrebuttal Testimony is available on the NEM Website.

The PSC will be reviewing a proposal raised at its last meeting that gas marketers be required to open their books to the Commission pursuant to an inquiry into the success of deregulation. NEM has submitted a letter to the PSC expressing its concerns about such surprise audits and the increased political, social and financial risks that the audits would impose on unregulated entities. NEM argued the widely-reported proposal would have a chilling effect on competitive entry in Georgia and across the country. NEM also argued that any requirement that marketers be required to open their books be premised on probable cause that some fraud has been committed. The full text of NEM's Letter is available on the NEM Website.

Draft revisions to the EDI Implementation Guides for Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland have been circulated. Comments on enrollment transactions are due November 9, 2001, and comments on metering/billing transactions are due November 30, 2001. The full texts of draft EDI Implementation Guides (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) are available on the NEM Website.