David Thomas: “I rise to address the pending amendment. The Senator from New Mexico cited a number of the people supporting his part of…”

“I rise to address the pending amendment. The Senator from New Mexico cited a number of the people supporting his part of the bill, several of whom were companies, of course. Maybe the fact that the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners supports the amendment would be an interesting change. In terms of looking out for the public's interest, I would guess that is more likely to be the case--certainly the North American Electric Reliability Council. Again, there are letters on each one's desk that the administration supports this proposal. We are looking toward getting together a balanced program. A number of things have been mentioned that need to be talked about a little bit. The FERC industry standards board was mentioned as being an alternative. The fact is that is only a concept. Years of work will be needed to make it happen. There is no consensus among industry stakeholders. More has developed in the West, and that is why this has sort of started there because these people were forced to come together and others will be as well. I don't think it is time to jettison 30 years of experience in doing this thing so that you can hand it over to a new bureaucracy that has neither the expertise nor, indeed, the background to take care of this task.”