Safeway

President Obama recently signed into law a landmark financial regulatory reform bill that has implications for every business in the country. Reforms involving financial derivatives trading, among other things, and how companies manage their risks, were the focus of the energy and manufacturing industries. The legislation’s effects on electricity suppliers and customers, and thereby infrastructure investments and electricity prices, gained particular attention with key legislators recognizing the need to maintain financial risk-hedging tools for electricity providers.
 

In a clear demonstration of the widely diverse support for competitive electricity markets across the country, the COMPETE Coalition recently announced it has surpassed 400 total members. COMPETE’s membership roster is one of the most diverse of its kind and reveals broad recognition of the economic and environmental benefits provided by competition in organized regional electricity markets. 

Founded in 2005, COMPETE continues to meet the needs of companies and organizations that understand how competitive markets foster the innovation and technology development necessary to meet 21^st century energy challenges, address climate change, and provide lower-cost power to consumers. The coalition experienced a 43 percent increase in membership in 2009.

A key Arizona legislator is pressing to reopen the state’s electric markets to full competition in order to spur job growth, reduce emissions, encourage innovation and reduce costs for consumers. Representative Lucy Mason of Prescott, chair of the House Water and Energy Committee, recently held a legislative forum that cited a report by the Goldwater Institute to urge competition in the state’s electricity market.

The Goldwater Institute report, Opening the Grid: How to Recharge Arizona's Electricity System for the 21st Century, was authored by two respected economists and finds that electricity restructuring has been successful in Britain, Texas and Pennsylvania, and would work in Arizona if the state’s electricity market was open to competition.