Washington (Platts)--4Jun2007

The US House Energy and Commerce Committee is considering crafting
legislation that would set a "portfolio standard" for the retail power
industry, requiring retailers to obtain certain amount of their electricity
from certain generation sources, documents show.

     Committee Chairman John Dingell, Democrat-Michigan, and Energy and Air
Quality Subcommittee Chairman Rick Boucher, Democrat-Virginia, have asked more
than 40 energy industry stakeholders for their perspective on formulating such
a bill. 

     In a letter obtained by Platts, the chairmen requested that the
stakeholders -- ranging from investor-owned utilities, to public power
providers, to state regulators, to industrial consumers, to conservation
groups and environmentalists -- respond by June 15 to dozens of questions on
how to create an energy portfolio standard. 

     Responses by that date would allow the committee time to take action
during the next 18 months, the chairmen said.

     The House in the past has opposed mandates on the electric power industry
to produce a certain amount of energy from renewable sources, but so-called
"renewable portfolio standards" have passed in the Senate three times.

     The US Senate later in June is expected to debate an RPS that would
require electric utilities to source 15% of their retail power from renewable
generation by 2020. 

     But both Dingell and Boucher said recommendations to establish a
portfolio standard  have been frequent and have included "clean energy of all
sorts" plus energy efficiency as a supply resource.

     Dingell and Boucher wrote to the stakeholders May 24 that the committee's
"ability to understand the merits, benefits and costs of a 'portfolio
standard' bill, and perhaps the energy community's ability to reach consensus
on what such a bill should provide, would be enhanced if we better understand
the range of perspectives, concerns and objectives reflected in such
proposals."