National Affairs: UTILITIES

F. P. C. Troubles

Small and practically impotent is the Federal Power Commission, set up in 1920, as an orphan agency to control billions of dollars worth of U. S. water power rights. Its job is to license power companies to construct plants along navigable streams, to check their investments, to regulate interstate power rates, to maintain govern-ment options to buy back licensed plants after 50 years. The nominal commissioners are the Secretaries of War, Interior & Agriculture. They sit about five hours a year. The actual work of the commission is carried...

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