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Consumer Sites
Alliance of State Leaders Protecting Electricity Consumers
http://www.protectpowerconsumers.org/
The alliance is a coalition of more than 50 state utility
regulators and other public officials from 18 states, primarily in the West and the South,
advocating on behalf of America’s electricity ratepayers. The alliance supports
"protecting customers from the risks of new experiments in untested and complex
electricity market structures that are centrally designed and uniformly imposed by the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) without regard to distinctive state and
regional policies and circumstances."
American Local Power Project
www.local.org/
Initiated by the Cape and Islands Self Reliance Corporation in
Massachusetts, this website is intended to provide a national clearinghouse for
communities seeking to use local power in the electric deregulation debate.
ALPP’s website features guest editorials by energy economists,
utility policy analysts, and consumer advocates. Its news focuses heavily on local power
projects in California but covers a few other similar projects around the country.
Conservation Law Foundation
www.clf.org/
The Conservation Law Foundation is the largest regional
environmental advocacy organization in the United States. It is based in New England,
where its attorneys, scientists, economists, and policy experts work on the most
significant threats to the natural environment of the region, and to the health of its
residents.
Energy is one of CLF's five major issues and includes responsible
deregulation, clean energy, and global warming/air pollution. The energy page focuses on
the effects of deregulation in New England.
Consumer Energy Council of America
www.cecarf.org
CECA is a public interest organization that focuses on energy,
telecommunications and other network industries that provide essential services to
consumers. It convenes forums, usually lasting between six and twelve months, on major and
often contentious issues related to these industries. These forums bring together the
major stakeholders -- utility and energy industry executives, members of Congress,
officials of DOE and other federal agencies, state public utility commissioners,
residential and small business users, scientists and academics, consumer advocates and
environmental leaders -- to discuss issues before new policies are made.
As detailed on its website, CECA is beginning a new forum for 2002 --
Energy Security and Electric Industry Restructuring -- focusing on current reliability and
market problems; national security needs to assure a safe electric infrastructure;
successful and unsuccessful restructuring plans; and the appropriate roles for federal and
state governments in the restructured electric power industry.
Consumer Federation of America
http://www.consumerfed.org/backpage/electricity.cfm
For more than three decades, the Consumer Federation of America has advocated
policies and programs that help ensure a marketplace with vigorous competition, products
that are useful and safe, marketing that is truthful and informative, and adequate
consumer redress. CFA is particularly sensitive to the needs of the least affluent and
educated consumers, who have little discretionary income to waste and are especially
vulnerable to deceptive or fraudulent sales.
CFA has issued a number of press releases, reports and testimony
critical of electric deregulation, all available on its website.
Consumers Union
http://64.224.97.228/i/Telecom___Utilities/index.html
Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, is an independent,
nonprofit testing and information organization serving only consumers. Consumers Union's
advocates tackle regional, national, and international consumer issues and testify before
federal and state legislative and regulatory bodies, petition government agencies, and
file lawsuits on behalf of the consumer interest.
The Consumers Union website features numerous recently published
studies, press releases and legislative reviews on electric deregulation and federal
energy policy.
Democracy and Regulation
www.democracyandregulation.com
Initiated by Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo
MacGregor, two long time low-income advocates, this website features numerous publications
and presentations dealing with such issues as: effective utility consumer advocacy,
utility consumer protections, low-income energy efficiency and assistance programs, and
other low-income issues in both regulated and restructured energy markets.
Electric Consumers' Alliance
www.electricconsumers.org/
The Electric Consumers' Alliance is a broad-based group of more than
275 consumer, government, and business organizations. The Alliance was formed to address
consumer needs as the electric utility industry makes its transition from comfortably
entrenched monopoly status to the largely uncharted territory of a restructured,
competitive industry. The Alliance seeks the fair and equitable treatment of electric
consumers as the industry undergoes change.
ECA’s website includes Current Connection, the group's monthly
newsletter, with updates on state deregulation, some information on energy prices and
their effects on low-income consumers, and a look at national issues such as regional
transmission organizations.
National Consumer Law Center
www.nclc.org/
NCLC is the nation's consumer law expert, helping consumers, their
advocates and public policy makers use powerful and complex consumer laws on behalf of
low-income and elderly Americans seeking economic justice.
The front page of NCLC’s website displays a link to "NCLC
Initiatives" in the lower left-hand corner. This link to Low-Income Consumer
Initiatives includes Energy and Utility Issues, which features "Retail Choice in
Natural Gas and Electricity: A Handbook for Low-Income Advocates."
National Low Income Energy Consortium
www.nliec.org/partner.htm
Founded in 1986, the National Low Income Energy Consortium (NLIEC)
brings together public, private, and nonprofit sector organizations and individuals for
the common purpose of reducing the residential energy hardships and crises faced by
low-income consumers by: finding common ground among diverse groups that work with, serve
or represent low-income energy consumers; exploring, exchanging, and promoting innovative
ideas and successful efforts that improve the ability of low income consumers to access
and afford energy; and setting an agenda for low income energy policy at the federal,
state, and local levels.
NLIEC’s website highlights its "The Cold Facts," which
provides the latest numbers on the financial and social impacts of high home energy costs
on the working poor and senior citizens and the challenges presented by a deregulated
energy environment.
Economic Opportunity Studies
http://www.opportunitystudies.org/index.html
Economic Opportunity Studies (EOS) Inc. offers analysis and
training in support of organizations and projects that provide low-income families and
communities with resources they need to become more self-sufficient. EOS
specializes in analyzing the opportunities for programs that provide sustainable community
development, energy efficiency, and fair access to energy services and environmental
benefits.
EOS's website provides a wealth of information relating to energy
data including research products that are based on the Department of Energy’s
Residential Energy Consumption Survey (“RECS”) 1997. This in-depth information
is essentially an energy “census” detailing energy usage, bills, and housing
characteristics. This data will be updated when DOE issues its 2001 RECS report sometime
in 2003.
Public Citizen
www.citizen.org/cmep/index.cfm
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit consumer advocacy
organization founded by Ralph Nader in 1971 to represent consumer interests in Congress,
the executive branch and the courts. It fights for: openness and democratic accountability
in government; the right of consumers to seek redress in the courts; clean, safe and
sustainable energy sources; social and economic justice in trade policies; strong health,
safety and environmental protections; and safe, effective and affordable prescription
drugs and health care.
Public Citizen has published a number of reports criticizing energy
deregulation and suggesting that the energy industry be re-regulated. All of these reports
are available at its website.
Resources for the Future
www.rff.org/intersections/elec_restructuring.htm
RFF is a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank located in Washington, DC
that conducts independent research – rooted primarily in economics and other social
sciences – on environmental and natural resource issues.
RFF’s online library features publications, projects, reports,
discussion papers and books on some of the environmental aspects of energy restructuring.
This is one of the few websites that discusses the implications of deregulation for
pollution control efforts.
Safe Energy Communication Council
www.safeenergy.org/restruct.htm
Originally established as the environmental community's response to the
nuclear industry's public relations campaign following the Three Mile Island accident,
SECC collaborates with and draws on the expertise of its diverse member groups to affect
energy policy at the national, state and local level.
One of SECC's stated goals is to ensure that the economic and
environmental liabilities of nuclear power are fully accounted for in a restructured
electric market. The website includes a highly critical report on how utilities are making
profit recovering their stranded costs under state deregulation laws.
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