Electricity Restructuring
UCS supports increasing competition in the electricity industry. Because the electricity industry produces one-quarter to two-thirds of the harmful air emissions clogging our atmosphere, any restructuring of the industry must protect the environment as well as consumers.

To ensure that restructuring protects the environment, it should promote the development of new clean and renewable energy technologies, increase energy efficiency, and reduce emissions from existing plants.

To achieve these objectives, UCS supports:

• Renewable Electricity Standards, requiring electricity suppliers to provide an increasing fraction of electricity from renewables
  
  
• Public Benefits Trusts, providing funding for increasing energy efficiency, for support of emerging renewable-energy technologies and other public-interest research and development, and for ensuring universal service and affordable electricity for low-income customers
  
  
• Net metering, ensuring fair treatment for customer-owned small renewables generators
  
  
• Fair environmental policies, reducing current power-plant emissions and closing the loophole that allows old coal plants to pollute much more than newer plants

To protect consumers, restructuring should maintain electricity-system reliability, require disclosure of fuel sources and emissions to customers, protect against market power, and ensure fair allocation of the benefits and costs of restructuring to consumers.

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