Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 31 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that the Public Utility Commission acted properly when it approved the merger of phone company giants Verizon and MCI.
The merger of Verizon and MCI was actually completed two years ago, but Pennsylvania Consumer Advocate Sonny Popowsky went to court, seeking to force the matter back to the Public Utility Commission to attach conditions to the merger.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 28 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
Cell phone users who pulled the plug on their land lines are cutting into county finances for 911 dispatching centers.
Because of increased use of cell phones, counties are receiving less revenue from telephone surcharges that they use to pay operating costs for 911 dispatching centers.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 28 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy
Gov. Martin O’Malley wants you to use less electricity, building on the premise that the cheapest and least-polluting kilowatt is the one never used.
But the goal he set in July — getting every Marylander to cut electricity use by 15 percent in seven years — is running up against the technical and financial realities of the power industry he wants to reform.
Utilities recently met his call to action with proposed conservation programs that together could cost ratepayers hundreds of millions of dollars over many years and still fall short of the goal.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 27 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Natural Gas, Electric, Energy, Environment
Duke Energy, the Charlotte-based utility, is now awaiting an air permit from Indiana for a $2 billion, 630-megawatt coal plant, large enough to power about 200,000 homes a year. Considered only average-size as traditional plants go, it would become the world’s largest coal-fired power plant to use a new, cleaner technology called integrated gasification combined cycle, or IGCC.
“It’s a technology that has the ability to take air pollution out of the debate over coal,” says John Thompson, director of the Coal Transition Program at the Clean Air Task Force, a Boston-based environmental group that supports the plant. “The day that plant opens, the 500 or so coal plants in the U.S. are obsolete.”
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 27 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Water, Environment, Wastewater
A pharmaceutical company will pay more than $20 million for multiple Clean Water Act violations stemming from three chemical spills, one of which killed more than 1,000 fish and forced the city to temporarily shut off drinking water intakes.
Based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., Merck & Co. Inc. will pay $10 million for systems to prevent future hazardous discharges at the facility 15 miles outside Philadelphia, and $9 million for other large-scale environmental protection projects, federal authorities said.
Merck also will pay $750,000 to the federal government, $750,000 to the state and $75,000 to the state Fish and Boat Commission in penalties and civil damages for the three 2006 discharges in the Wissahickon Creek, which is the source of 40 percent of Philadelphia’s drinking water.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 18 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
With Americans cutting the cord to their land lines, 2007 is likely to be the first calendar year in which U.S. households spend more on cell phone services, industry and government officials say.
The most recent government data show that households spent $524, on average, on cell phone bills in 2006, compared with $542 for residential and pay-phone services. By now, though, consumers almost certainly spend more on their cell phone bills, several telecom industry analysts and officials said.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 18 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy, Environment
Pacific Gas & Electric, the large Northern California utility, has signed a power purchase agreement with Finavera Renewables for 2 megawatts of electricity that will come from a wave farm, which Finavera will build 2.5 miles off the coast near California’s Humboldt County.
Ideally, the wave farm will start producing power in 2012. It will offset 245 tons of carbon dioxide annually, and if it succeeds, Finavera will expand the wave farm to 100 megawatts.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 17 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: Water, Environment, Wastewater
Water Tech Online:
Pharmaceuticals maker Merck, located in West Point, Montgomery County, will pay more than $20 million in a federal remediation settlement agreement for discharging potassium thiocyanate into the Wissahickon Creek in June 2006, according to a December 13 US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) press release.
The June 13, 2006, Clean Water Act violation caused extensive fish kills in the creek, a tributary of the Schuylkill River. The incident also caused the Philadelphia Water Department to temporarily close its Schuylkill River drinking water intake on June 14-15.
The settlement, announced by the EPA, US Attorney Pat Meehan and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, calls for the company to pay $10 million to put into place systems that will prevent future dangerous discharges at its facility, which is located 15 miles outside Philadelphia, and $9 million for other comprehensive environmental protection projects.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 17 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy
AP:
Motorists slid off roads Sunday across the Great Lakes states and into New England as a storm already blamed for three deaths cut visibility and iced over highways with a wind-blown brew of snow, sleet and freezing rain…
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission said the storm had blacked out about 160,000 customers Sunday. Scattered power failures also were reported in Vermont, state officials said…
Thousands of homes and businesses still had no electricity in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri.
Only about 14,900 Missouri homes and business remained without power Sunday morning, down from about 165,000 on Tuesday, but it could be the end of the week before power is restored statewide, said Duane Nichols, deputy director of the State Emergency Management Agency.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 14 Dec 2007 | Tagged as: General, Electric, Energy, Environment
Pared-down energy legislation cleared the Senate on Thursday by a wide margin after the oil industry and utilities succeeded in stripping out provisions that would have cost them billions of dollars…
…a requirement that utilities nationwide produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources were left on the floor to secure Republican votes for the package…
The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned electric utilities, led the opposition to the renewable electricity mandate. Along with its member companies in the Midwest and Southeast, the group carried out an extensive lobbying campaign warning that the bill would cause sharp increases in electric rates.
Welcome to Utility News, a law blog hosted by Saul Ewing LLP. Utility News is a source of information for individuals interested in public utilities and their regulation.
Edward G. Lanza, Editor
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