ATTENTION: ASSIGNMENT DESKS

11/06/00
Contact: Kathleen Maclay
(510) 643-5651
ckm@pa.urel.berkeley.edu

"Electricity Summit: Deregulation or Re-regulation?" This afternoon conference at the University of California, Berkeley, will evaluate the California electricity crisis - what has happened and why. Two panels of experts will debate policy options to steer a restructured industry away from current high prices and reliability risks and to help other states avoid the kind of electricity crisis that has struck California.

Roundtable discussions will include policy advisers, consumer advocates, scholars and researchers, state regulators and industry representatives.

Participants are Richard Glick, senior policy adviser on electricity and energy efficiency with the U.S. Energy Department; Stephen Littlechild, England's former energy supply director general; Severin Borenstein, director of UC's Energy Institute; and representatives from the California Public Utilities Commission, California Energy Commission, The Utility Reform Network, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Southern California Edison, PJM, Enron Corp. and the Calpine Corp.

DETAILS: Co-sponsors are UC Berkeley's Richard and Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy, the UC Energy Institute and UC Berkeley's Competition Policy Center at the Institute of Business & Economic Research.

Michael Nacht, dean of the Goldman School, will open the summit. Moderators are Laura Tyson, dean of UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, and UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School professor Howard Shelanski.