"Restructuring" the electric power industry will not lead to a complete deregulation of that industry, particularly as it relates to customer service issues and service quality. Under all proposals, the distribution and transmission functions of providing electricity will remain a monopoly function, subject to state administrative regulation.

Understanding the full range of common law doctrine, state laws, and federal laws which govern the provision of power --quite apart from commission regulation-- will become increasingly important as the competitive electric industry expands. FSC has written about issues such as:

	The applicability of the federal Fair Housing Act to competitive electric service providers.
	The applicability of the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) to competitive electric service providers.
	The applicability of Article 2 of the Uniform Commercial Code to competitive electric service providers.

In addition, much of the work that FSC has written about the regulation of unregulated Rural Electric Cooperatives (RECs) is equally applicable to "unregulated" competitive service providers.