John W. Rowe - Chairman President and Chief Executive Officer
Analyst · Atlantic Equities
I would like to say not with my lawyers. But even with the best lawyers around. After what you have seen in Illinois and Pennsylvania, the answer to that is pretty obviously, yes, repercussions abound. I mean let's put it very simple, we believe that with what's going on in natural gas markets over the next decade, where most new capacity will still be gas. Because it's what's you can build, we believe that with what's going on in carbon. We believe that with what's going on in capacity shortfall, we are absolutely and uniquely well positioned to benefit. But if those prices go up too much, we will have more than our share of problems. I just finished at our Directors retreat, showing our Board, a three nice photograph of commodore orders Gunboats [ph] going under the guns in Pittsburg, and I said, it must seem to you that somebody is always shooting at us. And the answer is that they are, and they will continue to do so as long as has we have the most valuable platform in the business. And I intend that we shall continue to have the most valuable platform in the business. But that's one of the reasons we support a safety valve on the carbon legislation. The old axiom, bulls make money, bears make money and pigs get slaughtered probably applies to Exelon carbon, we need to make certain move that when carbon legislation come, it's both efficacious and practical. And practical means not shocking this economy with huge cost, all at once, that's why we push the bill. We also defend the safety valve which ought to be of more interest to our core marine brethren. I believe that carbon legislation will create, very major long term value for Exelon shareholders. But it only does that, if we make certain, that it doesn't hurt our customers unnecessarily, and that's what we're setting out to do. We need to show that Exelon is at the forefront of viewing this environmental issue, because this one is real and this one is bigger than any of the others. There is no cheap, one way out of the carbon problem, as the old Star Trek movie says, we are carbon-based organisms and we live in a carbon-based society, and it's going to be very expensive and very long term to deal with this problem. We are well positioned to benefit from it, if we aren't sinking... but if you have huge pricing increases all at once, then you just have to assume, we will have to share more than we might want to share. So, we are looking at how we can help the public most with the environmental problem, and at the same time keep the most we can of our value for all of you.