Regulated utilities have historically been more insulated from the scrutiny of activists than companies in other industries. Starting in the late 1970s, however, the regulated utility industry began to restructure in response to political pressure for energy independence following the Arab Oil Embargo and rising environmental concerns. As a consequence, the many smaller companies that each separately produced and sold electricity or natural gas at retail in local markets no longer exist as public companies. First, these companies separated their business into wholesale production and retail distribution divisions, and then they started merging with one another and reconfiguring their business lines. Today, there are fewer and larger, multistate-competitive wholesale electricity producers; fewer and larger, multistate gas pipelines; and a few very large, publicly traded holding companies with multiple single-state electric and gas retail distribution company wholly owned subsidiaries, as well as some smaller, single-state retail utilities. Just as this restructuring is coming to a settling point, new technologies, consumer driven demand for renewable energy and fuel choice and rising inflation are catalyzing more change. These industry changes, together with changes in laws in the mid-2000s, eliminated the types of legal and regulatory restrictions that had previously limited the ability of activists to crash the regulated utilities’ private party.