Regulating Public Utility Performance

Written for newcomers and veterans alike, this book examines the foundations of public utility law and applies them to future challenges. Mixing case narratives and doctrine drawn from all legal sources, its analysis of the complexities of public utility regulation covers market structure, pricing, and jurisdiction. Now updated, this thoughtful analysis focuses on the fundamentals of public utility the legal principles that practitioners need to make public-spirited proposals and that policymakers need to make public-spirited decisions. As author Scott Hempling notes, much has changed since the first edition of his ridesharing, electric vehicle charging stations, new broadband content providers, microgrids, renewable energy mandates, demand response, smart grid, community solar, electricity storage and municipal aggregation, among others. New market entrants, using new technologies, seek to convert old-world monopoly markets into new-world competitive markets, and there are new threats as cyberattacks, hundred-year storms, wildfires and pandemics. These challenges are forcing policymakers to rethink their purposes, principles and procedures. The resulting tensions are both ideological and jurisdictional with trillions of investor and consumer dollars at stake. This updated and revised treatise organizes a century of legal principles to help the regulatory profession resolve these tensions and fashion new policies. Its mix of case narratives and doctrine, drawn from all legal sources, is geared to lawyers and non-lawyers, veterans and novices, practitioners and decision makers, academics and the media--anyone seeking to use the law to serve the public interest. The author shares pertinent information and guidance on the foundations of utility law Enable readers to act effectively in all regulated industries Help non-lawyers become conversant with law Prepare policymakers to adjust the law to accommodate technological change ..