Puc

The chairman of Bell of Pennsylvania asserted yesterday that it had been the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission's decision to withhold details of a dispute and $500,000 settlement with Bell. Robert M. Valentini, Bell's chairman and chief executive, said he had urged the PUC - after seeing a draft of a vague PUC announcement of the settlement in early December - to either issue a statement with more details or provide no news release at all. The case involved allegations that phone records were illegally used to identify whistle-blowers.

WE APPLAUD the Daily News for its strong support of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and this year's extension of the program (editorial, March 3). While the potential for closing the program with money unspent left you scratching your heads, your call for further advocacy from the Public Utility Commission left us scratching ours. For years, the PUC has been a vocal LIHEAP supporter. Even though we have no oversight of its funding or disbursements, the PUC has consistently called for expansion of the program's funding, eligibility requirements and individual grant amounts.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission yesterday hired a New Hampshire auditing firm to comb through the computer software-frazzled books of the Philadelphia Gas Works. The Barrington-Wellesley Group Inc., of New London, N.H., will be paid $446,000 or about 87 cents per ratepayer to examine the troubled city-owned utility. Under a 1999 state law, which faces a legal challenge by the City Council, the PUC is to take over most regulatory responsibilities from PGW, including rate-making and customer complaints on July 1, and a massive management audit is part of the process.

Citing stagnation and salary, William R. Shane announced yesterday that he would step down as chairman of the Public Utility Commission to become a country lawyer in his home town of Indiana, Pa. The resignation, effective June 29, ends a 13-year career on the PUC that started when Shane became the agency's first administrative law judge. He has been a member of the PUC since 1984 and its chairman the last three years. "I've accomplished my agenda here," Shane, 54, said during a news conference.

A proposed compromise on a bill to make changes in the state Public Utility Commission and extend its life was put on indefinite hold yesterday when supporters became fearful that the measure might be defeated. State Sen. Clarence D. Bell (R., Delaware), among those who crafted the compromise, said action on the PUC bill would be delayed at least until later this month and possibly until the fall. Bell said he supported the move for a delay when it became uncertain whether the compromise bill could gain enough votes for approval.

If there were any doubts remaining about the need for major utility reform in Pennsylvania, they should have been dispelled by the decision last week in the Philadelphia Electric Co.'s Limerick rate case. Attempts to hold the utility liable for its management decisions appear to have failed thus far. Those decisions have committed the region to high-priced nuclear generating capacity and guaranteed that Southeastern Pennsylvanians, as well as the businesses and industries located here, will pay among the highest electric rates in the country.

Gov. Casey will be forced to name one of the three current members of the state Public Utility Commission, all appointees of his Republican predecessor, to serve as chairman of the regulatory panel. Casey's selection became limited to the three current commissioners yesterday when the state Senate recessed for two weeks without taking final action on Casey's two nominees for the panel. Under the provisions of a 1986 state law, Casey had 120 days from the day he took office to designate a chairman for the panel.

Our local telephone monopoly, Bell Atlantic, suffered a huge setback in Pennsylvania recently. The story is instructive for Pennsylvania, as it shows how hard it is to actually make local telephone competition occur. Virtually no one disputes the benefits of competition. It pays huge dividends to consumers through lower prices and greater choices. Yet, in technology and telecommunications, the one area that has remained resistant to competition is local telephone service. Despite the best efforts of Congress and state regulators, the Bell monopolies and GTE have retained a 97-plus-percent hammerlock on markets in their service territories.

The state Public Utility Commission was asked to reconsider Philadelphia Electric Co.'s latest rate increase yesterday, a move that opens the door to a possible reduction of the $351 million rate increase by more than a third. The state Consumer Advocate, David Barasch, formally challenged the PUC's rate order, which was issued Thursday and allowed PE, beginning this week, to increase its electric rates in order to pay for its Limerick 1 nuclear plant. "The commission overlooked or failed to address the issue of whether the addition of Limerick 1 would provide net economic benefits to PE ratepayers any time in the reasonably near future," Barasch's office said in its request yesterday.

The days of local telephone competition in Pennsylvania are at hand. The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission yesterday pointed the way toward a new era in telephone competition by voting unanimously to let four companies provide local phone service in competition with Bell Atlantic Corp. All four companies intend, for now, to go after business customers. "It is a very important decision and a significant step forward for the Pennsylvania economy," said Royce Holland, president of MFS Communications Co., of Omaha, Neb., whose subsidiary, MFS Intelenet, won permission to offer local phone service in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh areas.