Toward a National Power Policy offers a comprehensive analysis of the
conflict between Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal and the electric
utility industry. Philip J. Funigiello outlines the origins and
evolution of the privately owned industry, and the growth of an
anti-monopoly movement in the 1920s. He details the four major areas of
conflict between public and private interests: the Holding Company Act,
the Rural Electrification Administration, the Bonneville Power
Administration, and power planning for the second World War. Funigiello
reveals the complexities of top-level policymaking and the networks of
interpersonal relationships that led to both conflict and compromise,
and concludes that the failure of the Roosevelt administration to
develop a well-defined philosophy prevented the development of a
national power policy.