National Energy Marketers Association s1

National Energy Marketers Association

News Release Contact: Craig Goodman FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Telephone: (202) 333-3288 January 10, 2001 Facsimile: (202) 333-3266 E-mail: [email protected]

National Energy Marketers Association To Meet in San Diego to Formulate Responses to National Energy Crisis Supply Shortages and Price Spikes Threaten US & Global Economies

Washington, DC – The Executive Committee of the National Energy Marketers Association (NEM) will meet in San Diego, January 22 and 23 to develop both supply and demand responses to the California energy crisis. NEM's Executive Committee identifies and prioritizes energy restructuring issues for state and federal policymakers throughout the country.

Energy and technology experts from all regions of the country and overseas will be analyze and recommend both short term and long term solutions to the current energy crisis. The agenda includes dozens of important wholesale, retail and energy technology issues but the California energy crisis will dominate discussions.

Some of the options that will be analyzed include: Short term responses:  Conservation Incentive Rates for all sizes of customers  Emergency Conservation Actions by the state, utilities, and consumers  Commoditizing energy loads to buy down peak usage  Regulatory authority to override citing decisions that do not properly quantify energy price/supply impacts  Expansion of existing energy and environmental tax incentives for both supply and demand side actions and investments Mid-term Responses:  Environmental cost-benefit analyses that properly quantify the increased costs of energy supplies  Funding for advanced metering and time of day rates  Funding for distributed generation and streamlined interconnection procedures  Funding for congestion and infrastructure improvements

"There are significant investments that must be made to bring the United States energy infrastructure into the digital age. The US and global economies can not stand black-outs in Silicon Valley, says Craig Goodman, President of the National Energy Marketers Association and former Director of Oil, Economic and Energy Tax Policy in the Reagan

1 and first Bush Administrations. .Despite all the miscalculations that led to this crisis, price spikes can always be predicted if new supplies are not built while demand increases. In the future, decision-makers will need to be far more rigorous in the application of cost-benefit analysis to environmental decisions. Unfortunately, short- term supply shortages and price spikes are the price that consumers, shareholders and taxpayers will pay as long as energy supplies are not available,(either for environmental or regulatory reasons,)" says Goodman.

However, the silver lining is that California might be forced to develop and commercialize high-tech solutions to this crisis quickly and lower the costs of this technology for the rest of the country. I expect a number of cutting-edge energy solutions to become commercial faster than anyone expected, says Goodman.

The National Energy Marketers Association (NEM) is a national, non-profit trade association representing both wholesale and retail marketers of energy and energy-related products, services, information and technologies throughout the United States. NEM's membership includes: small regional marketers, large international wholesale and retail energy suppliers, billing and metering firms, Internet energy providers, energy-related software developers, risk managers, energy brokerage firms, and information technology providers. NEM membership includes both affiliated and unaffiliated companies.

For more information, contact NEM's Washington, DC headquarters at (202) 333-3288 or www.energymarketers.com.