Exelon-PSEG Stuck in NJ

The New York Times:

New Jersey regulators said on Thursday that two energy companies would have to offer more money to customers and sell more power plants to win approval of their proposed $17 billion merger that would create the nation’s largest utility company...

But people who were briefed on the proceedings said that the state’s counterproposal would require the two companies to offer about $820 million to New Jersey ratepayers — or $200 million more than the companies’ most recent offer, made on Aug. 2. The money would be distributed mainly through credits on customers’ energy bills.

The new counterproposal would also require that P.S.E.&G., based in Newark, and Exelon, with headquarters in Chicago, sell eight fossil-fuel plants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, or two more than the federal Department of Justice recommended in June, when it approved the merger.