Are people overly optimistic about how fast electricity deregulation will go?
Yes, I think they are. There are efforts to get a Federal bill mandating retail wheeling, and it’s going to take awhile. There’s no crisis right now and there’s no consensus. My experience in looking to the legislative process is that you have to create a strong need. The members of Congress have to hear from their constituencies, and then there has to be consensus. Right now we don’t have a consensus. There are too many divergent views about what needs to be done and how it should be done. There has been a lot of media coverage of Markey’s and Schaefer’s bills, and Bliley’s desire to have Federal legislation. But there has been very little support on their own committee, even among the Republicans. Dingle, the ranking minority member on the House Commerce Committee, has been very much opposed to moving quickly. You’ve really got a coalition of Democrats and Republicans, a strong majority on the committee, not in favor of moving quickly. The individual members are hearing a lot from th
