We begin our celebration of 100 years of the Infrastructure and Regulated Industries Section on behalf of infrastructure companies with histories of two great 20th century industries—telecommunications and nuclear power. Quite fittingly, our anniversary celebration begins with Alexander Graham Bell and the emergence of perhaps the most successful corporation in American history, AT&T. Because of its dominance, AT&T and its lawyers were present at center stage of the regulatory and antitrust enforcement controversies that have defined the history of communications law and communications lawyers—from patent disputes to monopoly power to net neutrality. Our colleagues Christian F. Binnig and J. Tyson Covey tell the colorful story that begins with efforts to improve telegraph service and ends with today’s ubiquitous wireless and data services. In between, we are reminded of the disputes over the social control and market design of communications services, then voice and now data, which for 100 years, as a formal and settled matter, have been considered not just essential to human comfort and satisfaction, but necessarily “universal.”
August 01, 2017
Editor’s Column
By Casey Wren
From communication we move to the no less amazing history of the commercial nuclear power industry. Bradley Fewell, Donald P. Ferraro, and Darani M. Reddick remind us that it was 100 years ago, in 1917, when British physicist Ernest Rutherford became the first person to split the atom. Forty years later, in 1957, the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States began operating. Today, nuclear power supplies almost 20 percent of the power on the grid. The authors describe the development of the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States, including the federal laws that framed the early development of the industry and the regulatory impact of the more significant events since its inception. The article ends with the observation that nuclear power is presently at a critical crossroad and looks ahead to some of the more significant avenues available for the industry to address the financial, economic, and technological challenges that lie ahead.