Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 27 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
WCSH:
New Hampshire regulators have approved the sale of Verizon’s landline phone and Internet service in northern New England to North Carolina-based FairPoint Communications.
Maine, Vermont and the Federal Communications Commission have already approved the $2.35 billion deal.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 27 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
AP via China Daily:
The Bush administration said on Saturday US telecommunications companies have agreed to cooperate “for the time being” with spy agencies’ wiretaps, despite an ongoing battle between the White House and Congress over new terrorism surveillance legislation.
The Justice Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint statement saying wiretaps will resume under the current law “at least for now.”
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 22 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Energy, Environment
Three major investment banks, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Morgan Stanley, will announce new environmental standards today that are expected to make it more difficult for large coal-fired power plants in the United States to get funding. The standards anticipate some form of cap-and-trade program becoming law in the U.S. in coming years and seek to force utilities to plan for the inevitable; coal plants seeking funding would first have to prove they can be financially viable under a cap-and-trade system.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 22 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
Talk is supposed to be cheap, but it keeps getting more expensive for millions of California customers because of a 2006 regulatory change designed to do the opposite.
AT&T Inc. recently jacked up the price of call waiting, caller ID and other stand-alone features, the third rate hike in the last year. Those small fee increases add up fast, and they might only get worse. The hardest hit seem to be the elderly and the poor, who are most reliant on basic phone service…
In January 2009, California is scheduled to fully deregulate and do away with a cap on the price of basic land-line phone service. State regulators are considering whether to delay that move because they and consumer advocates worry prices will jump even more.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 18 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: General, Water
The nation’s utility regulators are expected to vote next week on a resolution asking state governments to give water-supply companies that comply with state and federal safe drinking water standards “safe harbor” against lawsuits by those who would claim they’ve been harmed by drinking water.
The object of the resolution, according to a text of it provided by the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), is to prevent the cost of such lawsuits from becoming an undue economic burden on water suppliers and their ratepayers.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 15 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Energy, Environment
Exelon Corp. (EXC), one of the largest utilities in the U.S., plans to cut or offset all of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, the company’s chief executive said Tuesday. Although the company is the largest nuclear electricity generator in the country, with around 90% of its generation fleet nuclear-powered, it’s still responsible for between 12 million to 15 million tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide annually through its other generation assets and power contracts.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 08 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Telecommunications
The telecommunications service provider Embarq Corporation, the wireline spinoff from Sprint Nextel, posted a lower quarterly profit on Thursday as it lost phone line customers, but its outlook was better than some analysts expected.
Profit fell to $190 million, or $1.23 a share, from $194 million, or $1.28 a share, in the quarter a year ago.
Revenue fell to $1.58 billion from $1.62 billion.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 06 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Water, Wastewater
The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) $7.14 billion fiscal year 2009 budget includes increased funding to improve water infrastructure security as well as $842.2 million for drinking water grants, according to a February 4 EPA press release.
The agency has allocated $555.5 million for clean water grants.
According to the release, several sustainable infrastructure initiatives are included, such as targeting Energy Star-rated technologies to help reduce the $4 billion annually that water utilities spend on energy costs, supporting a multi-year research program to foster innovation in distribution and collection systems, and proposing private activity bonds to provide another mechanism for water project financing.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 05 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: Natural Gas, Electric, Energy
Stymied in their plans to build coal-burning power plants, American utilities are turning to natural gas to meet expected growth in demand, risking a new upward spiral in the price of that fuel.
Utility executives say they have little choice. With opposition to coal plants rising across the country — including a statement by three investment banks Monday saying they are wary of financing new ones — the executives see plants fired by natural gas as the only kind that can be constructed quickly and can supply reliable power day and night.
Posted by Edward G. Lanza on 03 Feb 2008 | Tagged as: General
AP via Forbes:
The Department of Revenue says it has reached a settlement with PPL Montana on its contested taxes, and says the company will pay 94 percent of the taxes assessed over the past eight years.
The settlement follows a Supreme Court decision that largely went in the department’s favor, and a recent offer from PPL to pay 85 percent of its disputed 2000-07 tax bill.
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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