PURPA: The Intersection of Competition and Regulatory Policy

As Congress was gearing up for a possible repeal of section 210 of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, critics of PURPA agreed that the statute was incongruent with the push for a more competitive marketplace in electric power generation. Despite critics’ desire for radical change, PURPA and its underlying values, remain valid and continue to deserve support. Principally among these values is a concern for the ethics of energy generation: energy conservation and fuel diversity. Left to a deregulated, competitive market, these timely and important values would be lost to the ever important value of the dollar.