Where is the Government in all This?

And which government you might ask. For today’s purposes we’ll stay mostly within the U.S. and Canada. That’s plenty of territory to start with.

In the U.S. there are three basic levels of government control (or interference) involved in obtaining and providing energy services. This includes in some cases regulation of the rules and rates and who can be a customer and under what conditions.

And they are:

Federal:
The Department of Energy and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)

Congress:
House committee on Energy and Commerce (5 subcommittees)
Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources (4 subcommittees)

States:
Each state has a utility commission controlling electricity, gas, and communications

Counties and Municipalities:
Many have energy control related services

Then there is the international flavor:
Between the Federal and some States and Canada there are Independent System Operators (ISO). These are organizations formed at the direction or recommendation of the FERC to coordinate, control and monitor operations of the electrical power systems within a state, a group of states or states and Canadian provinces.

In addition there are Regional Transmission Operators (RTO) that coordinates, controls and monitors the operation of the electric power transmission system (grid) over a wider area crossing state borders.

Finally, while FERC only has authority over electric utilities within the United States, a larger authority known as the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), according to Wikipedia “…overlays the entire FERC footprint and also includes a Mexican utility and several Canadian utilities. As such, international reciprocity is commonplace and rules or recommendations introduced by FERC often are voluntarily accepted by NERC members outside the US.”

So it is clear that there are many hands in the pie, all subject to government policies and the impact that powerful energy interests have on such policies.

In our next offering we will display and discuss some of the specifics of government induced problems while giving credit, where appropriate, to the laudable efforts being made by some in the right direction.