Mr. Baxter: I would characterize our company as a low-cost regionally integrated electric and gas utility. We are the largest integrated utility in Missouri and the second largest in Illinois. We have no international operations or operations outside of the Midwest. Our customer base is a diverse one and we serve over 2.2 million electric and gas customers. And in terms of generation, we have nearly 15,000 megawatts of primarily low-cost, coal-fired generation. The generation portion of our business is fully regulated in Missouri and deregulated in Illinois. In Missouri, we don't expect that deregulation will be forthcoming any time in the foreseeable future. And, while a piece of our business is unregulated, over 90% of our earnings come from the regulated side of our business, and what's more important about that is that we have stability in our regulated business's in Missouri and Illinois due to rate freezes and rate moratoriums through 2006.
TWST: What is the reason for Missouri being regulated and Illinois being
unregulated or deregulated?
Mr. Baxter: I think there were simply different needs and philosophies
between the two states. Illinois went into the competitive marketplace
in the early stages of the industry, and adopted a fairly constructive
approach, much different than that which was adopted in California.
Missouri has always been a little bit hesitant to move forward into the
deregulated marketplace, largely due to the fact that utilities in
Missouri already have low rates basically across the board. So there is
little incentive to deregulate in Missouri, whereas in Illinois, there
was a disparity in rates between certain utilities.
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