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edited by Richard J. Gilbert
University of California Press (1991)
Regulatory Choices offers the first comprehensive economic history of energy policy and its consequences for California, where some of the most innovative and far ranging programs of regulatory reform have originated. the authors of the volume have gathered together an impressive wealth of material about policy decisions and their repercussions and have subjected their findings to astute economic analysis. With its focus on bringing prices into alignment with the true cost of producing power and delivering it to the customer, the first half of the book outlines the issue of setting utility rates and considers some of the proposals to provide regulated industries with incentives to respond to economic and environmental concerns. The problems of energy supply occupy the second part of the book, which includes a survey of the costs of alternative energy sources and estimates of their environmental impact, as well as a case study of the construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The book concludes by documenting the results of subsidy programs that were designed to target the development of wind power and residential energy conservation.
