Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Over the past six decades federal regulatory agencies have attempted different strategies to regulate the natural gas industry in the United States. All have been unsuccessful, resulting in nationwide gas shortages or massive gas surpluses and costing the nation scores of billions of dollars. In addition, partial deregulation has led the regulatory agency to become more involved in controlling individual transactions among gas producers, distributors, and consumers.
In this important book, Paul MacAvoy demonstrates that no affected group has gained from these experiments in public control and that all participants would gain from complete deregulation. Although losses have declined with partial deregulation in recent years, current regulatory practices still limit the growth of supply through the transmission system. MacAvoy's history of the regulation of natural gas is a cautionary tale for other natural resource or network industries that are regulated or are about to be regulated.
Synopsis
Six decades of efforts by federal agencies to regulate the natural gas industry in the U. S. have failed, says the author of this important book. Paul MacAvoy shows that no one has gained from public control of the natural gas industry, and he argues that all participants would gain from complete deregulation. For regulated and about-to-be-regulated industries, the costly history of gas regulation is a tale to heed well.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-135) and index.