John Morris

John Morris is a Managing Director at Secretariat Economists in Washington, DC. He is a leading expert on competition and price formation in energy industries. He has provided competition studies and testimonies concerning many of the largest electric utility and natural gas mergers during the past 20 years. He also provided expert testimony in some of the most complicated energy cases during that span, including allegations of market power in California during 2000/2001 and allegations that Energy Transfer Partners manipulated natural gas prices at the Houston Ship Channel in 2005.

While working at the Federal Trade Commission (1985–1991), Dr. Morris worked on over a dozen natural gas pipeline matters, including Occidental Petroleum’s purchase of MidCon, Arkla’s purchase of Entex, and Panhandle Eastern’s acquisition of Texas Eastern. In addition, he provided expert testimony for the Federal Trade Commission in West Texas Transmission L.P. v. Enron Corp. et al.

While at Secretariat Economists (1992–), Dr. Morris has consulted with major corporations and leading law firms on many energy matters. Since 2005, he has consulting with merging parties on most of the large electric utility mergers in the U.S. A small sample of natural gas and electric power mergers that he has consulted or testified on includes: Vistra/Dynegy, Entergy/Entegra, PPL/Riverstone (Talen), WEC/ Integrys (WEC Energy Group), Berkshire Hathaway/NV Energy, NRG/Edison Mission Energy, Exelon/Pepco Holdings, Duke/Progress, Exelon/Constellation, FirstEnergy/Allegheny Energy, Dominion/U.S. Gen, Pacific Enterprises/Enova (Sempra), and AEP/CSW. He has testified concerning competitive effects of market-based rates for electric utilities, natural gas storage facilities, and oil pipelines; mergers of coal mining companies; conduct of regulated companies and unregulated affiliates; competition in energy retailing; cost of capital; rates of return from new transmission facilities; local distribution company credit requirements; and real-time pricing. He has also examined competition in petroleum industries, including production, transportation, refinery, and retailing segments.