Passed in 1989, it allows local private Power managers and local cooperative managers to adjust service territory
boundaries, in effect trading customers when it can be shown to the satisfaction of the
Missouri Public Service Commission that doing so is in the public interest.
The state’s antitrust laws had previously prevented such deals.
This tried to address the underlying problem of duplication of facilities in
some areas. Rural electric cooperatives as defined in Chapter 394 of the
Missouri Statutes can serve in rural areas which are defined simply as outside of
cities and municipalities of 1,500 or more. But in that same rural territory the
Public Service Commission years earlier had given blanket service certificates
to the power companies.