fyi...We may want to consider going in and talking with ComEd again soon, assuming we know what are needs are from a physical delivery standpoint.
Janine

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	"Fein, David I. - CHI" <david.fein@piperrudnick.com>@ENRON  
Sent:	Wednesday, October 17, 2001 12:19 PM
To:	'jmigden@enron.com'; Landwehr, Susan M.; Hueter, Barbara A.; 'rboston@enron.com'
Cc:	Townsend, Christopher J. - CHI
Subject:	ComEd wants to limit power purchase option

Attached is an article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune this morning
regarding Edison's presentation to yesterday's ICC Electric Policy Committee
Meeting that we thought you would find to be of interest.


From the Chicago Tribune
ComEd wants to limit power purchase option
By Melita Marie Garza
Tribune staff reporter

October 17, 2001

Commonwealth Edison Co. on Tuesday proposed weaning its largest commercial
and industrial customers from a power purchase plan that the company asserts
stifles competition in the state's emerging market for electricity.

Under the proposal, the utility would differentiate between industrial
customers that use less than 400 kilowatts of electricity at any given
moment and those that use more, Pamela Strobel, ComEd's chairman, told the
Illinois Commerce Commission. A standard Jewel or Dominick's grocery store
uses about 400 kilowatts of electricity at a given moment, Strobel said.

Under deregulation, corporate customers have three options: Stay with
ComEd's standard regulated electricity service based on rates set in 1996,
pick an alternative supplier or opt for ComEd's so-called Power Purchase
Option.

Customers who pick the last option get ComEd's market rate but are allowed
to choose ComEd competitors as their primary power suppliers.

ComEd's proposal would bar its largest customers from that option, which the
utility says has stymied deregulation because it allows competing suppliers
to merely resell the power that ComEd produced.

"So long as the utility is providing this option, real competitive markets
won't work," said Arlene Juracek, ComEd's vice president for regulatory and
strategic services. "Some suppliers have taken the easy way out by telling
their customers to sign up for the plan."

Terry Harvill, an ICC member, agreed. "There was an unintended problem ...
rather than alternative suppliers coming into Illinois with diverse sources
of energy, essentially you have them just taking power from ComEd and
reselling it to customers," Harvill said.

Specifically, ComEd proposes to limit the Power Purchase Option to
non-residential customers paying competitive transition charges, effective
June 2002. The transition charges cover costs incurred by the utility prior
to deregulation.

"I think it's a step in the right direction, but the details remain to be
worked out," Harvill said. He noted that companies still would have the
option to fall back on ComEd's traditional regulated plan.

But Marty Cohen, executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, was
skeptical.

"There are certain inherent conflicts in the way that Edison sees the world
because they are a subsidiary of a much larger company--Exelon--which is, in
fact, the largest producer and seller of electricity in this market," Cohen
said.

"So you have ComEd on the one hand being the largest buyer of electricity,
and you have Exelon, its parent company, being the largest seller of
electricity. This proposal doesn't address that issue."



David I. Fein
Piper Marbury Rudnick & Wolfe
203 North LaSalle Street
Suite 1500
Chicago, Illinois  60601
phone:  312-368-3462
fax:  312-630-7418
e-mail:  david.fein@piperrudnick.com



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