The debate over energy deregulation

1. It was a private company PJM Interconnect, in Horsham, PA that recognized what was happening, and disconnected New York, et al. from their grid, thereby sparing almost all of Pennsylvania, Southern Jersey, Maryland, and a potentially much larger area from being affected.

   Furthermore, PA has had a deregulated energy market for some time now, and we've never had a problem with price gouging, rolling blackouts, or reliability. If anything, service has improved 10-fold, and prices have dropped by just as much since deregulation started.
   



2. If more regulation and government supervision were really the answer, then why did Canada lose power? Canada regulates its power industry. London recently had a power outage, and they also regulate their power industry. Many countries have more regulation than we have and still have rolling blackouts. A coworker told me that back in India, where he's from, they have two hours every night of scheduled black-outs so everyone gets power.
   

People view regulation as some sort of panacea that will fix all problems, but it is not.

Mr. Court's also asserted that deregulation leads to Enron-style corruption. Enron is the exception, not the norm, and to use it as a blanket-proof for why we need more regulation is foolhardy. Extrapolating that, we can infer that Mr. Court would have us believe that companies are corrupt, but our government is above reproach. This is completely ludicrous! (But then, Mr. Court did write a book 'Corporateering - How Corporate Power Steals Your Personal Freedom' I have not read the book, but I do intend to.)

I'm sure we can all point to corrupt politicians and shady deals we've seen or heard about.

Consider:

• If the government does something wrong, and you want compensation, you're up a creek. You can't sue the government! They'll tell you "Sorry about your luck, but there's nothing you can do, have a nice day, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!" But you can sue a private company.
• If government's in control of an industry, and you think prices are too high, what are you going to do? You can't go anywhere else and shop for a lower price. You're stuck with that one choice, and that one choice alone. But with a private company, they have competition, and they're willing to cut prices, and offer more services to keep you as a customer.

Regulation is not the answer people! Deregulation is. Let more people have a chance. Let smaller companies onto the grid to provide power. Let people experiment with generating their own power. Give people more choices, and it will only make us all stronger. Imagine if small companies were allowed to start pushing power on the grid on India, making those rolling blackouts unnecessary! Imagine how that could improve the quality of life for people. Imagine the jobs created, the additional capital that would be spent both by people looking to have continuous energy, and the people working for the new companies.

Regulation is a barrier to entry into an industry that can not only prevent new investment, and new innovations, but can stifle an economy as a whole.

This kind of pro-regulation bias presented as 'obvious' fact by Marketplace, and Mr. Court specifically, makes me sad, and makes me want to stop listening. But I won't. If nothing else, it's good to know what the pro-regulation forces are saying because it will give me more material for future articles.