The 'Obscured' Regulatory Clash

Even for an industry that has grown accustomed to structural change over the last decade, the power industry is facing even greater numbers of emerging issues at a dizzying pace today. More and more, Federal and state stakeholders, driven by their histories and constituencies, are crossing into each other's traditional areas of influence and power.

Federal stakeholders, driven by global environmental and trade constituencies and unable to accomplish their goals through interstate transaction oversight alone, are seeking more and more to regulate the power industry at the asset level.

State stakeholders, driven by cost/reliability of service and economic development needs that they are no longer able to meet strictly within their state borders, are banding together into super-state regional cooperation structures.

Industry issues like emissions and fuel security grab headlines, while obscuring the early rounds of a profound struggle that could cripple the industry at a crucial transition point  the clash between Federal and state regulatory jurisdictional boundaries