Blog Archives: June 2012

Market Monitors: Should There Be More?
June 2012

Relying on the "market" is not a belief system—promising positive results in proportion to hopes and prayers.  Relying on the market is a public policy decision, requiring (a) fact-based confidence that sellers' incentives are aligned with customers' needs, and (b) skepticism that the facts supporting that confidence today will necessarily exist tomorrow.

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Four Thousand Parties?
June 2012

A Canadian regulatory proceeding on a major pipeline has 4000 intervenors.  (No typo; there are three zeros in that figure.  And this is the technical hearing, not the non-technical hearing.)

U.S. commissioners spend time "on the road," hearing from the public in official, but non-evidentiary, hearings.  It's worth asking two questions:  What is the specific value of non-evidentiary hearings? And is there tension between that specific value and current legal reality?

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Net Metering Arbitrage
June 2012

A very smart colleague came up with this one while running his tractor.

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