Environment/Consumer Group

“…[P]roperly structured regional wholesale electricity markets with independent regional transmission operators can provide net benefits to customers and promote critical national goals related to fuel diversity, energy security, and environmental protection. Well-structured regional wholesale electricity markets operated independently allow far greater amounts of renewable energy and demand response resources to be integrated into the nation’s electric grid…” - Letter to FERC Chairman Kelliher from the American Wind Energy Association, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others.

“Pennsylvania restructuring has led to a boom in clean energy development that has brought billions of dollars of new investment and thousands of new jobs. New generation companies have entered Pennsylvania. Projects that were previously impossible or very difficult when utilities had a monopoly are now operating. More and cleaner generation is benefiting both consumers and the environment.” – Citizens for Pennsylvania’s Future

Customers

“We’re learning more ways to deliver efficiency savings to customers and shareholders. We’re striving to use 100 percent renewable power by looking at every possible project, biomass, wind, hydro, because the flexibility of competitive markets provides greater benefits from these sources.” - Angela Beehler, Senior Director of Energy Regulation and Legislation for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc

“7-Eleven, Inc (SEI) has actively participated in all U.S. deregulated states and Canadian provinces in which it operates since 1996. SEI continues to realize utility cost savings and cost avoidances by participating in competitive electricity markets. Informed energy decisions in deregulated markets help mitigate SEI costs and help drive the implementation of more energy effective store equipment. Through deregulation SEI more narrowly defines the energy requirements for the SEI business model. Energy deregulation works for SEI.” - Mark Morgan, Corporate Engineer, 7-Eleven, Inc.

Financial Experts

"Governments today…are rediscovering the benefits of competition and the resilience to economic shocks that it fosters…The impressive performance of the U.S. economy over the past couple of decades, despite shocks that in the past would have surely produced marked economic contraction, offers the clearest evidence of the benefits of increased market flexibility...Flexibility is most readily achieved by fostering an environment of maximum competition." - Alan Greenspan, “Economic Flexibility,” Before the National Italian American Foundation, Washington, D.C. (October 12, 2005)

“The savings from competition are real dollars in the pockets of consumers, and those savings will continue after fuel prices retreat from their current high levels. In addition, there have been multiple new entrants and large gains in generator performance with competition. One estimate found that performance improvements from divested power plants produced enough additional energy to power more than 25 million households in the Eastern interconnect for a year. Customers are beginning to gain access to more tailored products and services. Credible price signals provide opportunities to develop a robust demand response that both has a significant price dampening effect and relieves the stresses and strains on the delivery systems. And, restructuring and competition have brought significant environmental benefits, with reduced emissions resulting from increased operating efficiencies, improved regional dispatch of generating resources, and the use of market signals to stimulate increased investment in transmission, emission control technology, highly fuel-efficient new generation and renewables. … We urge policymakers to focus on making necessary improvements in market design and resist the temptation to reject competition for a return to heavy-handed regulation. We are persuaded that competition in electricity markets will stand the test of time and continue to provide visible customer benefits.” - Paul L. Joskow, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research - Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Alfred E. Kahn, Robert Julius Thorne Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus - Cornell University; William W. Hogan, Raymond Plank Professor of Global Energy Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government - Harvard University; Peter Cramton, Professor of Economics – University of Maryland; Howard J. Axelrod, President - Energy Strategies, Inc.; Vernon L. Smith, President - International Foundation for Research in Experimental Economics; David W. DeRamus, Ph.D., Partner - Bates White, LLC; Gary L. Hunt, President - Global Energy Advisors (June 2007)

Fed Chairman Bernanke has commented that in the short-run, prices for natural gas and crude oil are likely to remain high given strong world economic growth and limited ability to increase energy supplies. He has expressed great confidence, however, in the power of market forces stating that “in the long run, market forces will respond” with new “energy- saving technologies,” alternative fuels and “growth in energy supplies.” – Federal Reserve Board Chairman Benjamin Bernanke, Remarks before the Economic Club of Chicago, Chicago, Ill. (June 15, 2006).

“…Nevertheless, the introduction of competition into generation resulted in greater efficiencies, lower heat rates, greater reliability, lower non-fuel operating costs, and in general, more widely adopted best practices. Consider how nuclear power plant operations have dramatically improved in competition's short tenure. Would a reversion to regulation preserve these gains? Absent the pressure of competition, it is hard to believe so, given cost-of-service regulation's history.” – Peter Rigby, Standard and Poor’s (April 2007)

Energy Experts

“New choices, products, and services are on the horizon. Innovation occurs faster in competitive environments, because consumers will demand it. Continuing to develop competitive electricity markets will encourage investment in electricity infrastructure – transmission, power plants and renewable sources – to improve delivery and reliability. We can't put vertically integrated systems back in place. Competitive markets will continue to evolve, there's no turning the clock back." - Honorable Philip D. Moeller, Commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (June 2007)

“The question before us is not whether competition is the right policy; that’s been asked and answered three times in the past 25 years. It’s really how do we make competition work.” - Joseph T. Kelliher, Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

“Federal policy related to open and competitive markets for electric power is a matter of our nation’s security and economic welfare. The pressures of the global energy economy and the need to protect the environment require that state and federal policymakers work aggressively to reinvent how the business of producing and delivering power is regulated in the 21st Century.” – Former FERC Commissioners Vicky A. Bailey, Linda Breathitt, Nora Mead Brownell, James J. Hoecker, Jerry J. Langdon, William L. Massey, Elizabeth Anne Moler, Donald F. Santa, Pat Wood, III (May 2007)

The U.S. Department of Energy determined that wholesale markets saved consumers an estimated $13 billion annually. “On average, wholesale power transactions reduced generation costs, in the aggregate, by approximately $370,000 per hour in the East and by more than $1,000,000 per hour in the West. These savings translate directly to lower prices for consumers.” - U.S. Department of Energy National Transmission Grid Study, (May 2002)

“Electric restructuring in New York has saved consumers between $100 million and $200 million annually, according to a "cost-benefit analysis" that the New York Independent System Operator commissioned from an outside firm. The benefits are largely due to improved operation at power plants, since the independent generators that own most of the state's plants have a profit incentive to run them well, with fewer outages, according to the Analysis Group of Boston.” - Electric Power Daily/McGraw Hill (March 26, 2007)