Gas Daily Article: Wood supports public debate in setting policy

I thought his comment about gas was encouraging.

Wood supports public debate in setting policy

FERC Chairman Pat Wood wants to settle policy matters in public and sees great benefit
from commissioners debating and discussing proposals out in the open rather than
behind closed doors.
At a Washington conference sponsored by Charles Schwab Corp., Wood said yesterday
he is convinced that "policy made in the sunshine" is better developed and more
thought out than policy "made in the dark."
Contrasting the current commission's style with that of prior commissions, Wood
believes that it is "important for industry to see how we get there" when issuing orders.
Prior commissions generally carried on debates in private, he noted, and commissioners
only made brief public statements on controversial matters.
Holding forth on policy matters, Wood went on to tout the natural gas industry's experience
in the 1970s as "one of the more successful deregulations that ever happened."
Lessons learned from the gas experience should be applied to efforts to restructure the
electricity industry, he added.
Pointing to the California market dilemma as an example of failure of deregulation,
Wood blamed the state's "insufficient infrastructure" and inability to establish "balanced
market rules." Without those pillars of competition in place, California deregulated the
power market, which led to chaos, he said, adding that there is "not much worse than a
deregulated monopoly." RM