Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935

Public Utility Holding Company Act
Great Seal of the United States
Long titleAn Act to provide for control and regulation of public-utility holding companies, and for other purposes.
Acronyms (colloquial)PUHCA
NicknamesWheeler-Rayburn Act
Enacted bythe 74th United States Congress
EffectiveOctober 1, 1935
Citations
Public law74-333 15 U.S.C.A. § 79 et seq.
Statutes at Large74-687
Codification
Acts repealedby Energy Policy Act of 2005
Titles amended15 U.S.C.: Commerce and Trade
U.S.C. sections created15 U.S.C. ch. 2C—Public Utility Holding Companies § 79 et seq.
Legislative history
Major amendments
National Energy Act of 1978
Energy Policy Act of 1992
Energy Policy Act of 2005
United States Supreme Court cases
1938 - Electric Bond and Share Company v. Securities and Exchange Commission
1946 - American Power & Light Co. v. Securities and Exchange Commission
1946 - North American Co. v. SEC

The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 (PUHCA),[1] also known as the Wheeler-Rayburn Act, was a US federal law giving the Securities and Exchange Commission authority to regulate, license, and break up electric utility holding companies. It limited holding company operations to a single state, thus subjecting them to effective state regulation. It also broke up any holding companies with more than two tiers, forcing divestitures so that each became a single integrated system serving a limited geographic area. Another purpose of the PUHCA was to keep utility holding companies engaged in regulated businesses from also engaging in unregulated businesses. The act was based on the conclusions and recommendations of the 1928-35 Federal Trade Commission investigation of the electric industry. On March 12, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt released a report he commissioned by the National Power Policy Committee. This report became the template for the PUHCA. The political battle over its passage was one of the bitterest of the New Deal, and was followed by eleven years of legal appeals by holding companies led by the Electric Bond and Share Company, which finally completed its breakup in 1961.

On August 26, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law.[2]

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 repealed the PUHCA.

  1. ^ Codified at that time at 15 U.S.C. § 79 et seq.
  2. ^ "Public Utilities Holding Company Act | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-05-08.

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