T
$1.7 Billion
H
E
Bill for SO2
PSI Energy,
Reinventmg Itself, FacesClean Air Act Challenges With Optimism -
T
PLAINFIELD,
INDIANA
he Clean Air Act amendments, approved by Congress last No-
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As a result, only one of PSI’s 22
ahead. “I don’t see the Clean Air
coal-fired units has a scrubber to
Act as a cloud,” Rogers says. “It’s
remove sulfur, though the utility
a great opportunity.” But he ac-
burns about 12.6 million tons of
knowledges that PSI is still formu-
coal each year.
lating its compliance strategy and
PSI officials now estimate they
has not decided exactly what it
will have to spend $1.7 billion in
will do. ‘We’re in the process of
the next decade to reduce sulfur
figuring out how to comply,” Rog-
dioxide and nitrogen oxide emis-
ers says. The challenge is how to
sions. That is a huge amount of
“minimize the cost impacts to our
money for a utility with total as-
customers and reassure our finan-
sets of $2.8 billion.
cial backers.” (See page 12 for a
Indiana is one of several Mid-
profile of Rogers.)
U
vember, are forcing many electric
west states -
utilities to change their habits.
souri and Ohio -
And nowhere is the Act’s imple-
Clean Air Act will hit the hardest,
Act amendments create a free-
mentation more painful and un-
according to data compiled by the
market for pollution allowances
along with Miswhere the
nlike other environmental statutes, the 1990 Clean Air
certain than at PSI Energy, Inc., an
(similar to “rights to pollute”).
investor-owned
The number of allowances is es-
utility with head-
quarters here, in a suburb of India-
tablished by statute, and key pro-
napolis.
visions take effect in 1995. The
PSI, formerly Public Service Co.
EPA is expected to publish de-
of Indiana, serves about 600,000
tailed rules in September for im-
homes, farms and businesses in
plementing the Act. Affected
central and southern Indiana, in-
utilities, including PSI, must then
cluding the town of Huntington,
start scrambling to meet the Act’s
home of Vice President Dan
1995 deadline.
Quayle. (A separate utility serves Indianapolis.)
What makes the legislation so
Like many of its
utility neighbors, PSI is heavily
different is that it allows PSI and U.S. Environmental Protection
other utilities to design their own
dependent on coal as a fuel
Agency (EPA). Other electric utili-
compliance programs, including
source. Last year, for example,
ties in region, many of them
plans to sell or buy allowances on
the utility obtained 99% of its elec-
larger than PSI, may have to in-
the open market as they see fit.
tricity from coal-fired plants
vest more money to comply with
The affected utilities must meet
which are subject to the Act’s
the Act. But none is likely to in-
the overall goals of the Act, but
stringent controls on sulfur diox-
vest more dollars per kilowatt of
they have dozens of ways in
ide, generally believed to be the
generating capacity than PSI,
which they can do so. The Act
which will soon become a testing
therefore creates uncharted terri-
ground for the Act -
tory for PSI and every other coal-
prime cause of “acid rain.” Many of PSI’s coal plants were built 20 or 30 years ago, before acid rain was considered a pressing national problem. Further-
a crucible
for implementing its complex formulas and innovative incentives. Despite these challenges, the
burning utility in the nation that is covered by its provisions. Furthermore, proposed legisla-
more, PSI’s plants are in rural
utilivs
parts of the state, where pollution
James E. Rogers, Jr., seems to rel-
sues, including the Public Utility
laws are more 1enientIy enforced.
ish the tough choices that lie
Holding Company Act of 1935
August/September
2992
chief executive officer,
tion in Congress on other utility is-
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(PUHCA) and transmission ac-
ened the utility with bankruptcy
the expensive costs of complying
cess, will affect PSI as well.
Although PSI escaped bank-
with the Clean Air Act.
All of these developments put
ruptcy, one of its Marble Hill part-
R
ogers says PSI has four
basic choices in terms of
PSI at the hub of the fundamental
ners, the Wabash Valley Power As-
and sometimes contradictory
sociation, did not, and the
complying with the Clean Air
changes swirling around the elec-
Wabash bankruptcy proceedings
Act: (1) it can impose a stringent
tric industry. “We’re redefining
and multimillion dollar lawsuits
conservation program and thus
the utility,” Rogers says.
against PSI were settled only re-
reduce the amount of electricity it
cently. PSI, however, was so
has to generate; (2) it can switch
weakened that it wrote off $2.5 bil-
from high-sulfur coal (mined in
with a narrow mission. That is no
lion. Only a series of emergency
Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois) to
longer true, Rogers says. The
rate increases approved by the In-
low-sulfur coal from Wyoming
pending changes in the bulk
diana Utility Regulatory Commis-
and other Rocky Mountain states;
power market (which allow utili-
sion saved PSI. The rate increases
(3) it can install scrubbers at the
ties greater freedom to buy and
were in effect between 1984 and
plants to remove sulfur; or (4) it
sell power with each other), the
April 1990, by which time the
can buy “allowances” (rights to
n the past, PSI saw itself as a I conventional electric utility
proposed PUHCA amendments
pollute that are created under the
(which, if enacted, would encour-
Act). A fifth choice, not men-
age more nonutility generators to
tioned by Rogers but one that is
enter the bulk power market),
under consideration, is to build
and the pressures to open up
several gas-fired units to replace
transmission corridors -
aging coal plants. Burning gas is
these
much cleaner than burning coal,
are all signs that the utility industry, like it or not, is being trans-
and the utility would therefore re-
formed. PSI, Rogers says, is no
duce dramatically its sulfur diox-
exception.
ide emissions.
Preparing for Change
A Mix of Strategies The most likely choice is a com-
“The overall and overarching
bination of all the strategies, with
principal (facing the electric industry) is that we’re moving to a
commission concluded that PSI
more competitive arena,” Roger
was healthy again and approved
increased load growth, now about
maintains. PSI, he says confi-
a 4.2% reduction in retail rates.
2.4 percent per year. In June, PSI
dently, is prepared for the coming changes. Unfortunately, PSI is just recov-
Indeed, by most measures, the company is now doing relatively
conservation helping to dampen
announced it would implement a conservation program to reduce
well. In 1990, for instance, a share
its summer air-conditioning peak
ering from its last set of financial
of PSI stock earned $2.20, and it re-
load by 85 megawatts by 1995.
challenges, some of which were
instituted quarterly dividends,
PSI’s peak demand is 4,642 mega-
not so kind to the utility and its
which had been suspended in the
watts, and the effort is considered
shareholders. In the 198Os, the
mid-1980s in the midst of the Mar-
the most ambitious energy-effi-
Public Service Company of Indi-
ble Hill crisis. PSI, however, has
ciency program of any electric
ana (PSI’s predecessor) stopped
not had enough time to develop a
utility in Indiana. Consumer
building the Marble Hill nuclear
consistent track record for Wall
groups said they were pleased
power plant because costs had
Street, and it must now deal with
with the proposed conservation
ballooned to $7 billion and threat-
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package, which must still be ap-
Regulatory Commission.
proved by state regulators.
won’t be a double A-rated com-
to be thrilled to own stock in a
pany, but that may not be neces-
company whose clean-up strat-
sary. The big ‘if’ is whether emis-
egy will make it a higher cost pro-
No matter how successful, conservation alone will not help the
“They
-
ment is installed. “I’m not going
utility meet its load growth and
sions trading (authorized under
ducer of electricity,” Hyman says.
the complex demands of the
the Act) works. That’s critical.”
Higher costs could mean that
Clean Air statute. Low-sulfur
PSI, in Monk’s opinion, spent too
large industrial users would go
coal, another option under seri-
much money and time on at-
elsewhere, leaving the base of resi-
ous consideration, will probably
tempting to complete the Marble
dential customers with the respon-
be used to replace only part of the
Hill nuclear plant in the 198Os,
sibility to pick up the tab. “And
current supply, and scrubbers will
and as a result, it neglected its air
that is only one of the dangers,”
be installed at some units. (In
pollution problems. PSI, he says,
Hyman warns.
July, PSI announced that it would
is now having to play “catch-up.”
build a scubber at one of its Gib-
Another major question for PSI,
A
nother unknown element in the PSI strategy is the effect
son coal units at a cost of about
according to Leonard Hyman,
of a Federal Energy Regulatory
$170 million. Construction is ex-
first vice president at Merrill
Commission decision, issued in
pected to start in 1993. Once com-
June 1990, which authorizes PSI
plete, the scrubber will remove
to sell 450 megawatts of baseload
100,000 tons of sulfur dioxide
coal generation on “market rates”
each year from the unit’s stack
rather than traditional cost-of-ser-
emissions.
vice rates. FERC’s decision, is-
But additional scrub-
bers may also be installed at other
sued at PSI’s request, should
units in order to comply with the
encourage the utility to sell some
Act.)
of its excess capacity at a greater profit than it would normally be
‘Share the Pain’
allowed to do with traditional
ogers has described this as a
rates. Under the decision, PSI is
R “share the pain” approach.
obligated to share any profits
Ratepayers, shareholders and the
from the market-based transac-
community (including Indiana
tions with its retail customers.
coal companies and their employ-
Lynch in New York, is how the
But so far no utility has bought
ees) will all feel the effects of PSI’s
utility will finance its clean-up ef-
any of PSI’s excess firm power.
activities. Under a typical sce-
fort. PSI probably hasn’t worked
nario, residential rates would be
out the details, and at this point it
expected to increase 18%, plus in-
may be prudent not to have done
As part of the 1990 decision, the
flation, by the year 2000, Rogers
so, Hyman says. Some flexibility,
FERC also approved a PSI plan to
says.
Hyman maintains, is necessary
open up its transmission system
Nonetheless, state regulators
Opening the Grid
But there are potential pitfalls
to outside utilities and qualifying
here and financial experts in New
waiting for the utility. “The pres-
facilities. This open-access provi-
York are cautiously optimistic
sure to use local (high-sulfur) coal
sion, like the market rates, has re-
about PSI’s future.
is substantial.”
mained largely symbolic to date.
“They have a reasonable chance
That may help the
coal companies and their work-
No one has taken up PSI on its
to come out of this in good
ers, but it puts extra costs on the
offer to wheel electricity.
shape,” says James R. Monk,
backs of consumers as scrubbers
chairman of the Indiana Utility
and other pollution control equip-
AugustfSeptember
1991
continued on page 14
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By Jim Rogers’ own admission, his career illustrates the “z” theory of corporate advancement. Beginning with a job as a consumer advocate in the early 197Os, Rogers has zigzagged his way from various positions inside and outside of the utility industry to become chief executive of PSI Energy, Inc., the largest investor-owned electric utility in Indiana. He assumed control of the company in 1988 and quickly established himself as one of the innovative executives in an industry that often seems bound by its own tradition. To detractors Rogers seems brash and his ideas, well, they’re definitely not a product of the old school. In recent months, for instance, Rogers has recommended scrapping the restrictive provisions of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which deter nonutility companies from building power plants, and he endorsed the goals of a transmission access bill in Congress that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission the authority to open up existing transmission systems to competing utilities. And at conferences and seminars he talks about the benefits of competition, occasionally needling fellow executives for not welcoming changes. At one meeting last September, Rogers’ comments on transmission so agitated fellow panelist Dick D&brow, chairman of American Electric Power, that the AEP chief turned crimson and the dialogue grew testy. Rogers, age 43, is one of the youngest utility executives in the country He says he never planned his career this way, and his resume offers proof. While attending the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Rogers worked as an attendant at a funeral home - his small apartment was above the business. Needing more money and feeling financial pressure because of his impending marriage, Rogers began casting about for new opportunities. He saw an advertisement for a reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader and interviewed for the position. The editor, however, told Rogers he was looking for an experienced journalist. Rogers, undaunted, convinced him that someone with no experience would be easier to train than a reporter who brought preconceived notions of how to do things. Rogers got the job and worked there while finishing his undergraduate degree in busi-
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ness administration. Although he thought about graduate school in journalism, Rogers enrolled instead at the University of Kentucky Law School and graduated in 1974. His first job was as an assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where he acted as a consumer advocate (intervener) in gas, electric and telephone rate cases. After little more than a year in the position, Rogers moved to Washington, D.C., where became a staff lawyer with the Federal Power Commission, the predecessor of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. He worked at the Commission for only a year and a half before joining Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld, a prominent D.C. law firm. Rogers specialized in energy issues at the law firm for 18 months before returning to federal service, this time as deputy general counsel for litigation and enforcement at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. His stint at the commission was a short one again. After 20 months, he returned to the Akin Gump law firm, where he represented natural gas pipelines, gas producers and electric utilities before FERC, the U.S. Department of Energy and federal courts. Then, in 1985, Rogers became senior vice president for rates and regulatory affairs at Enron Corp., a Houston, Texas energy firm. He was subsequently promoted to executive vice president and also served as president of Enron’s interstate gas pipeline companies. In October 1988, after almost four years with Enron (his longest stay at any company or agency), Rogers left to become chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of PSI Energy, Inc., and its parent holding company, PSI Resources, Inc. His salary, including bonuses, is $547,000. In order to bring new talent to the PSI board of directors, Rogers added two new board members, Kenneth Duberstein, former chief of staff in the Reagan administration, and Stuart Eizenstat, former domestic policy advisor for President Carter. (Eizenstat now practices law for Powell, Goldstein, Frazer and Murphy, a Washington, D.C. law firm than handles federal legislative and regulatory issues for PSI.) And Rogers immediately set out to change the companys image in the electric industry as well as in
Jim Rogers, A New Kind of Utility Executive, Rattles Cages
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the community “I came to PSI with a strong belief in competition. I want to interject competition into the electric utility business. It’s good for stodgy companies,” Rogers says. “Competition forces you to reinvent the business and to rethink the assumptions. That’s healthy Competition will help create a stronger industry for the next century.” The competition that Rogers talks about is a relatively new phenomenon in the electricity-production business. The passage of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, which required utilities to buy power from independent power producers at the utility’s avoided cost, marked the first time that the federal government encouraged nonutilities to enter the business. Subsequent changes, including the use of competitive bidding procedures for acquiring conservation, only produced more pressures on utilities to compete with nonutility firms. But there are even more challenges to the status quo on the horizon, and Rogers says he welcomes these developments. Predictably, his statements have placed him at odds with some of his fellow utility executives, who are not sure whether this outspoken newcomer to the electric utility industry understands the subtleties of the power business and how it differs from the gas industry At a May congressional hearing on amending the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Rogers took the position, along with other electric utility executives, that the oncevenerated legislation, enacted in 1935, had simply outlived its usefulness and ought to be rewritten. PUHCA, Rogers told the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power, effectively precludes some of the best and most experienced companies from applying their “considerable talents” to the emerging independent power business. Sitting next to him was Edmund Schroer, chief executive of Northern Indiana Public Service Co., PSI’s neighbor, who adamantly urged the Congressional committee to leave PUHCA alone. The PUHCA amendments would in effect deregulate wholesale bulk power markets in the country and could encourage abuses in self-dealing, Schroer warned. ‘We believe the electric consumer will be best served by preserving the current
August/September
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next month, the Edison Electric Institute, the D.C.-based trade group, issued a sweeping condemnation of a bill pending in Congress that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission new authority to order transmission access and wheeling on a case-by-case basis. Rogers, irritated at Edison’s ‘hell no, we won’t go” approach, said he would form his own group of utilities to negotiate with Congress. “Jim is always prepared to challenge the conventional wisdom. A businessman has to be that way in order to be successful,” says Mike Naeve, a former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member and now a Washington, DC. lawyer with the firm of Skadden Arps, which does legal work for PSI at the commission. “He has a poster on his wall that summarizes his philosophy,“ Naeve says. “It shows a cavalry charging down a hill, with one guy in front creating a lot of dust. The cap tion is ‘Make Dust or Eat Dust.’ That’s Jim’s approach too. He would rather make dust than eat it.” One of Rogers’ top priorities when he assumed his duties at PSI was to modify the company’s position on the proposed Clean Air Act amendments, which had been the subject of a protracted and bitter Congressional debate for more than a decade. Rogers, according to colleagues, was quick to realize that a bill was likely to pass Congress in 1989 or 1990. There were new political factors at work, including a new President who had endorsed a version of the Clean Air Act, and a new majority leader in the Senate, George Mitchell (D-Me.) who made the Clean Air Act one of his top legislative priorities. Rather than “just say no,” as PSI and other utilities had done in the past, Rogers steered his utility toward a more moderate position. The change was particularly welcome news for Rep. Phil Sharp, whose district includes much of PSI’s territory. Sharp’s Energy and Power Subcommittee had been besieged by utilities, conservation groups, coal industry trade groups and The
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labor unions,alI with a stake in the complex legislation that had tiedup Congnzssfor ten years. “Jim Rogers is a very politicalanimal He realizedhe could zesist(the pressurestopasstheCleanAirAct)and not become part of the pmcess, or he could affect the outcome/ says DanielWatkiss,a Washington,DC. lawyer with the Powell,Goldsteinfirm. “Jimdecidedto become a player and becamepart of the process,” Watkiss says. “He put forwardthe interestsof the @on and influencedthe overall debate. He made legislatorsmore sympatheticto PSI’sposition.” Rogersalso took the initiativein his own backyard. In the tradition-boundworld of Indiana utilities, Rogers broke ofd barriers by establishing communications with state ratepayer advocates and consumer groups. “He’s extremely approachable,” says Bob Johnson, an attorney with the state Office of Utility Consumer Counselor, which represents ratepayers before state regulators. “He’s always eager to strike up a conversation, and he seems to have a natural curiosity that carries him a long way” Shortly after assuming his duties at PSI, Rogers called the state’s leading consumer group, the Citizens Action Coalition, and asked to meet its staff. “Jim Rogers broke the ice,” says Chris Williams, the Coalition’s executive director. “He’s nice guy, and I don’t say that often about utility chief executive officers. I’ve been here 11 years, and he’s the most forthright of the utility chief executives and the only one to visit our offices. There’s a real dialogue now between his utility
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and our organization.” continued from page 11
Rogers acknowledges that the FERC decision has not yet produced concrete money-making opportunities for PSI, but he says
power to a neighboring utility
general approach is codified in
that has chosen to shut down one
the statute.
of its coal plants because compliance costs are too high. The Act establishes a free-mar-
One hundred and eleven “dirty” power plants are named in the Act and must reduce their
the market rate decision will in-
ket trading system for emissions
emissions by 1995 (Phase I> to the
deed make a difference in the future. “The market is soft now,”
allowances.
level cited in the statute. For PSI,
tem, utilities can swap allowances
that means cutting back its total
(“rights to pollute”) or sell them
sulfur emissions from roughly
on the open market to other inter-
475,000 tons to 285,000 tons by
ested parties (e.g., brokers, inde-
1995, according to the EPA.
pendent energy producers, etc.). The EPA is still formulating rules
decade, requires even more reduc-
Rogers admits. “But we think it will firm up” in coming years. The FERC decision also appears to give PSI the incentive to overcomply on the Clean Air Act and take advantage of the marketbased rates by selling surplus
24
Under the new sys-
for emissions trading and other portions of the Act, though the
Phase II, which begins the next tions. It establishes a nationwide cap of only 8.9 million allowances
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of sulfur dioxide per year. This
the open market. If the utility in-
point is certain. PSI must behave
cap, which becomes permanent
stalls scrubbers, it must therefore
like a juggler who is supposed to
after January 1,2000, applies to all
attempt to recover this cost in any
perform any number of tricks -
existing and new facilities. For
open-market transaction.
under a set of ground rules that
Why
PSI, that means it will only have
would a utility want to pay PSI to
has yet been written and for an
about 136,400 allowances.
install scrubbers at a plant when it
audience that has yet to arrive.
That
The clean air problems come at
figure represents 29% of the sul-
could do the same at its own unit?
fur dioxide it emitted in the mid-
And if PSI proceeds to build gas
198Os, EPA data shows.
turbines -
B
ut compliance is not just a mat-
ing about 500 megawatts of gas-
well. “Our middle-sized utility
ter of implementing straight-
fired generation in the coming
has made history,” Rogers says
line engineering drawings and
years to replace coal-fired plants
about the company that he has
installing scrubbers. PSI has sev-
-will
headed since October 1988.
eral basic choices and a myriad of
with even more surplus coal-fired
subchoices from which to select.
generation?
it has proposed build-
that not flood the market
a time when PSI has charted new ground for itself in other areas as
In late May, Indiana Gov. Evan Bayh signed into law a bill that allows PSI to obtain advance ap-
It can comply exactly with the in other words, it can re-
proval from the Indiana Utility
duce emissions by the levels speci-
Regulatory Commission for its
fied in the Act. Or, it can
Clean Air Act compliance plan,
overcomply and sell allowances
thus removing doubts that what-
to other utilities that have un-
ever strategy PSI chooses will be
dercomplied.
second-guessed at a later date by
statute -
Or, it can un-
dercomply and buy allowances
the Commission and found in
from utilities that have over-
hindsight to be imprudent.
complied. PSI, in short, can
Prior Plant Approval
choose whether it wants to be conservative and watch out for itself,
According to PSI officials, Indi-
or whether it wants to enter the free-wheeling, opportunistic world of allowance trading.
‘Byzantine Permutations’
Another dimension is that in
that allows a utility to obtain ap-
1995 the Act also allocates 200,000
proval of compliance plans before
extra allowances for utilities in the
money is invested.
Midwest. PSI will obtain a pro
Some of these options involve Byzantine permutations.
ana is the only state in the nation
Under
rata share of those allowances.
State statutes also allow PSI to pass on compliance costs for in-
Another set of additional allow-
stalled pollution control equip-
the Act, any utility that invests in
ances are available for clean-coal
ment to customers on an annual
scrubbers (which remove sulfur
demonstration technologies, such
basis as “construction work in
when coal is burned) will receive
as one that PSI and Destec, Inc.
progress,” another incentive for
a two-year extension of the Phase
(which operates cogeneration fa-
PSI to proceed with necessary ex-
I deadline. Scrubbers, however, are not only expensive to install
cilities at Dow Chemical plants)
penditures.
have submitted to the Depart-
In addition to those state provis-
they are expensive to maintain,
ment of Energy for funding. A de-
ions, PSI also benefitted from an
and they actually reduce the effi-
partment decision is expected in
April 1990 decision by the Indi-
ciency of the overall plant. In
fall. In each of these cases, PSI has
ana Utility Regulatory Commis-
PSI’s case, it has surplus coal gen-
the possibility to obtain greater
sion which allows the utility to
eration which it wants to sell on
flexibility,, but nothing at this
calculate its rate of return on a
August/September
1991
15