DATE: Thursday, April 17, 1997              TAG: 9704170402

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY AKWELI PARKER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   54 lines

PROS AND CONS OF POWER INDUSTRY DEREGULATION TO BE DISCUSSED

Fifty-year-old network lineman Bob Frederick has seen a lot during his quarter-century in the power industry. He's worked in buckets 40 feet above the ground and down in the trenches, fixing power lines coursing with half a million volts of electricity.

But neither he, the policy wonks in Washington nor six-figure salaried utility execs can predict what will happen in the humming debate over power industry deregulation.

The House Commerce Committee is trying to find out, though, holding field hearings across the country to weigh the pros and cons of opening the $200- billion-a-year power industry to competition.

On Friday, the committee comes to Richmond, where it will hear testimony from consumer groups, electric utilities and state regulators in the Henrico County Government building.

Frederick, business manager for Local 980 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, wore a hundred-watt smile this week despite the issue's uncertain outcome. In his hands, he said, was the first video to come out on electric deregulation - a subject that has yet to capture wide public interest even though it potentially affects everybody.

Frederick said the IBEW is giving its 15-minute tape, titled ``Power Switch,'' to legislators, civic leagues and ``anybody who'll sit down and listen to it.''

The union is afraid that rushing to deregulation will put power networks on a crash course as incompatibility between different systems causes blackouts.

What's more, warns the video, as utilities downsize to make themselves more competitive, highly skilled workers will be put out on the street. As a result, it may take longer to turn the power back on.

Opponents of immediate, federally mandated legislation say the states should be allowed to decide if and when they go to a competitive market, which would work much like long-distance phone service does now.

Utilities worry that a ``one-size-fits-all'' federal mandate on competition will hurt residential customers and small businesses, who don't have the bargaining power of large electricity users.

But some groups, like Americans for Affordable Electricity, say the time is right to restructure the industry, and that the federal government must step in because electricity is a matter of interstate commerce.

Friday will be a busy day for Virginia Power's top execs. Parent company Dominion Resources Inc. will hold its annual meeting the same morning.

Although company officials said the meeting should be pretty routine, the company's stagnant dividend could stir debate if it remains at its current 64.5 cents per share a quarter. Last year was the first time in decades the company didn't raise its dividend.

Dominion CEO and President Thomas Capps said last April that it was a necessary step as the company tightened its belt to prepare for industry competition.

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