This less surgical application of used and useful developed in large part as
a recognition among regulators and the public that, to quote Judge Starr, "the
utility business represents a compact of sort^."'^' Utilities operating as
monopolies entirely in the public service are a permanent part of the Arnerican
landscape, and when they suffer, whether from economic vicissitudes,
extraordinary losses, mismanagement, or regulatory misjudgment, ratepayers
pay the consequences. In other words, the risks of the business are more intimately
shared than ever. Thus, when utilities commit capital in reasonably
prudent pursuit of their obligations to invest in future service and to convey
benefits to future as well as present ratepayers, agencies may decide to afford
rate base treatment or cost of service recovery to investments not then providing
service to consumers. Such so-called departures from traditional used and
useful, whether called risk allocation or something else, do not often contravene
the purpose and rationale of used and useful when the interests of the
ratepaying public generally are taken into account