Will New Jersey Reregulate Utility Rates?

Highlights

• With New Jersey's gubernatorial election campaign season underway, increasingly high energy costs have become a contentious, high-profile issue.
• Various bills have been introduced recently in the New Jersey Legislature or circulated informally that would reregulate utility rates while limiting or eliminating the retail competition established by the Electric Discount and Energy Competition Act of 1999 (EDECA). If successful, such reregulation efforts would allow utilities to again add generation facilities to their rate base and earn a regulated return on those investments.
• Commercial and industrial (C&I) customers that have benefitted from retail choice, as well as utilities whose businesses may be restructured through reregulation, should pay close attention to the ongoing reregulation debate.