WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rule Making to expedite the entry of public utility holding companies into the telecommunications industry.
The NPRM seeks to implement part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which adds a new section to the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935.
Section 34 permits public utility holding companies to enter telecommunications without prior Securities and Exchange Commission approval and vests the FCC with jurisdiction to determine whether such a company warrants status as an “exempt telecommunications company.”
The FCC reported that since the enactment of the 1996 Act on February 8, it has granted three applications for ETC status and eight more have been filed.
Utilities that are not public utility holding companies always have been free to enter telecommunications without prior SEC approval, and section 34 will end this disparate treatment, the FCC said.
The commission noted that other provisions of section 34 preserve federal and state jurisdiction over determining “whether a public utility company may recover in its rates the costs of products or services purchased from or sold to an associate or affiliate company that is an ETC” as well as the authority to conduct independent audits.
