The newly formed Senate Committee on Electric Utility Regulation stepped squarely into the restructuring battlefield this fall when it held hearings in Madison and Eau Claire on the PSC's workplan for introducing retail wheeling into Wisconsin by 2000.

Legislators at the hearings heard a great deal of criticism of the PSC's fast track process from individuals and organizations, including RENEW. Testimony at the Eau Claire hearings also expressed much anxiety over the proposed merger of Northern States Power (NSP) and Wisconsin Electric Power (WEPCO). NSP's Eau Claire office will lose some 200 employees if the NSP-WEPCO merger goes through.

Much of the testimony in Madison centered on WEPCO's secret contracts with several Illinois businesses. These contracts allow WEPCO to offer electricity to these companies at lower prices than what the utility charges similar businesses in Wisconsin. The political pressure generated by these hearings forced the disclosure of two of these contracts, one involving a J.C. Penney's store in Peoria and the other involving a Granite City foundry.

WEPCO's conduct came under heavy fire at the hearings. Some speakers questioned the propriety of offering discounted energy to Illinois firms while seeking a 7% rate increase for its residential customers starting next. Others, noting that these sweetheart contracts are only a taste of things to come under retail wheeling, criticized the PSC's decision last February to set into motion a complicated and elaborate 32-step workplan to authorize retail wheeling.

RENEW Executive Director Michael Vickerman praised the Committee for holding the hearings, and observed that "this is the first legislative hearing on this topic since the PSC opened the restructuring docket in September 1994."

Calling Wisconsin an emerging "nonrenewable island," Vickerman faulted the PSC for ignoring public interest concerns like renewable energy while pursuing deregulation with abandon.

"While we at RENEW believe that restructuring can be accomplished in a way that promotes, rather than retards, the sustained orderly development of the state's clean, renewable energy resources, the PSC has chosen to ignore this important facet of the Wisconsin's energy future," Vickerman said.

"States like Minnesota and Iowa are forging ahead with renewable investments, while Wisconsin lags farther and farther behind. Absent legislative scrutiny and action, Wisconsin's race to the bottom in the renewables arena is all but assured.

The Customers First! Coalition, consisting of utilities and citizen groups opposed to retail wheeling (including RENEW), took advantage of these hearings to unveil its "Customer Bill of Rights" . The platform, part of the coalition's public information campaign directed at state legislative candidates, contains a strong commitment to increase the contribution of renewable resources to the state's energy mix. RENEW and other coalition partners are formulating a specific mechanism to acquire a significant amount of new renewable capacity statewide. The mechanism is in- tended to create a safe haven for in- vesting in renewables (and lowering their costs) while the electric utility industry goes through some wrenching changes.

Once this renewable acquisition mechanism is finalized and supported by the entire Coalition, it will become a part of the Coalition's own restructuring proposal, which will be based on public interest models. RENEW is optimistic that the Coalition will soon unite behind a strong renewables acquisition requirement on all electricity providers as a component of the over- all restructuring process.