America’s Energy Consumer Protection Agency Fails; People Face Enron-Style Market Manipulation While

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=3093

America’s Energy Consumer Protection Agency Fails; People Face Enron-Style Market Manipulation While Agency Looks On

Statement of Tyson Slocum, Director, Public Citizen’s Energy Program

Note: Today, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce’s Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment holds an oversight hearing to examine the performance of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Today, lawmakers will have an opportunity to highlight serious shortcomings at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The agency’s primary responsibility is to ensure that all electricity rates under its jurisdiction are “just and reasonable.” This mission – if properly carried out – would provide one of the strongest consumer protections in the federal government by helping to protect ratepayers from Enron-style price-gouging. But the agency is failing miserably. In these tough economic times, people need an agency that will aggressively fight energy companies that abuse the market. FERC is not yet that agency.

Public Citizen therefore urges Congress to pass legislation requiring FERC to return to a system in which rates are set by the cost of providing the power, rather than being set by the market. Cost-based rates should remain in place until a full investigation of the agency’s failures can be carried out.

More at the link above --