Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SECONDARY SCHOOLS (90%); JAZZ & BLUES (90%); MUSIC (90%); PRIMARY & SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS (89%); EDUCATION SYSTEMS & INSTITUTIONS (89%); HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS (89%); SPORTS & RECREATION EVENTS (89%); HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCE (78%); STUDENTS & STUDENT LIFE (78%); ARTS FESTIVALS & EXHIBITIONS (75%); LANGUAGE & LANGUAGES (72%); SPONSORSHIP (70%); FESTIVALS (70%); BASKETBALL (75%); SPORTS (50%); SOCCER (50%); BASEBALL (70%)
COMPANY: SCIENCE & ENGINEERING ASSOCIATES (53%); INTEL CORP (53%)
ORGANIZATION: HARVARD UNIVERSITY (84%)
TICKER: INTC (NASDAQ) (53%); INTC (SWX) (53%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS334413 SEMICONDUCTOR & RELATED DEVICE MANUFACTURING (53%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, USA (92%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: June 29, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Text
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

637 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
June 29, 2008 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Snack Mentality
BYLINE: By ROB WALKER.

Rob Walker is the author of ''Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are,'' out this month.

SECTION: Section MM; Column 0; Magazine Desk; CONSUMED; Pg. 22
LENGTH: 757 words
Pirate's Booty

The popularity of Pirate's Booty and other snack foods made by Robert's American Gourmet might be explained in a couple of ways. Maybe it's the use of more natural and recognizable ingredients, mostly baked instead of fried, at a time when more of us are health-conscious. Maybe it's the quirky-funny image, centered on cartoony packaging and offbeat names. Or it could be the combination of those qualities with a maverick entrepreneurial story behind the brand -- a kind of Ben & Jerry's appeal.

But Pirate's Booty hasn't simply leveraged unusual consumer loyalty into a business with a reported $50 million in annual revenue. It has held onto that loyalty despite incidents that would seem to cut against its image. A few years ago, the Good Housekeeping Research Institute slammed the brand after its own tests found that a one-ounce serving of Booty contained 8.5 grams of fat, not 2.5 as the label indicated. And in 2007, the company issued a recall of its Veggie Booty and Super Veggie Tings varieties after they were linked to cases of salmonella.

Both incidents generated bad publicity, complaints and lawsuits, and the conventional wisdom suggests fairly dire consequences in such cases. (''Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000,'' as the title of a recent book puts it.) The negative-fallout potential might seem particularly severe for a product popular among parents as a more healthful alternative for their junk-food-craving kids. Yet it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. Just last month, the company's founder, Robert Ehrlich, was the subject of a Brandweek cover story focused largely on the rule-breaking nature of his success.

Ehrlich told me that the company came through those trying incidents intact partly because it reacted quickly and openly. (He attributes both problems to ingredient suppliers, and says that in each case ''we didn't know.'') He also notes that the company had long-established goodwill with its customers -- it's been around since 1986 -- drawn to its ''authenticity.'' Finally, he sounds skeptical of any theory about consumer behavior that is likely to be taught in business school. ''I have really good instincts'' about consumers, he says. ''I understand their needs. They're looking for trust and a unique experience.''

Ehrlich's original business idea involved salad dressings, but he switched to snacks in part because they are ''more social.'' That sounds right: an office worker scarfing Pirate's Booty in the break room, or a parent whose child arrives at a play date clutching a bag, will no doubt be eager to share the most virtuous properties of the snack -- and maybe a taste too. (Another factor: ''Dressing sits in your refrigerator for a month, and snacks -- you need a new bag in about 20 minutes,'' he told Donny Deutsch on the CNBC show ''Big Idea.'') The bright-as-Disneyland packaging -- a stark contrast to the almost lecture-ish aesthetic of most ''healthy'' snacks -- doesn't undercut the guilt-free message but rather underscores it: this stuff is fun and good.

Then again, ''good'' is a relative term. After the Good Housekeeping incident, the company both reformulated the snack and changed the labeling to indicate the new fat count, five grams -- not quite as good as the earlier claim, but better than the earlier reality. (Though not so much better than the seven grams of fat in an ounce of spicy nacho Doritos.) In that Brandweek article, Ehrlich said that the phrase ''Good for You'' on a bag of Tings (eight grams fat) wasn't so much a claim as a congratulation: ''You bought this bag -- well, good for you!'' In our conversation, he stuck with this, pointing out that the product contains no MSG and no preservatives, and therefore the buyer deserves a pat on the back for choosing a snack that's not so bad: ''Wow, you chose something that is going to change your life,'' he says. (Besides, he adds, is Snapple really made from ''the best stuff on earth''?)

What's really going on, of course, isn't contradiction; it's compromise. Surely, for instance, a WeightWatchers.com message-board contributor who named Pirate's Booty as a foodstuff that ''dieters can't live without'' knows that this suggestion is more likely to reduce guilt than weight. After all, snacks are highly debatable as a need, but the craving for guilt reduction is hard to deny. What Pirate's Booty says, either as a social signal or a self-signal, is, ''Hey, I'm trying here.'' To which there is only one response: Good for you.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SNACK FOODS (90%); BRANDING (76%); MARKET RESEARCH (75%); CONSUMER BEHAVIOR (74%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (70%); CUSTOMER SATISFACTION (69%); RESEARCH INSTITUTES (68%); PRODUCT RECALLS (66%); BACTERIA (51%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (69%)
COMPANY: BEN & JERRY'S HOMEMADE INC (57%); ROBERT'S AMERICAN GOURMET (91%)
PERSON: MICHAEL MCMAHON (51%)
LOAD-DATE: June 29, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY PETER ARKLE)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

638 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
June 26, 2008 Thursday

Late Edition - Final

Working Alone in a Group
BYLINE: By LISA BELKIN
SECTION: Section G; Column 0; Style Desk; LIFE'S WORK; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1098 words
MY book proposal was not writing itself. It was half-done, and the stack of research in the corner was growing tall enough to topple. Because it was the only project, among several, without a deadline, it always seemed to fall off the to-do list entirely.

One reason I write from home is that I work best at my own pace and on my own terms. I am typical of the stream of workers who have left traditional offices for home in the last decade, causing a jump in the number of single-person businesses, to 20.4 million in 2005 from 16.4 million in 2000, according to the most recent census. (Not to mention the rising number of people who work from home, especially as telecommuting grows in direct proportion with the increase in gas prices.)

What also makes me typical, though, is my discovery that home is not always conducive to work. Which is how I found myself, with my stack of research shoved into a rolling briefcase, driving 25 minutes from my house to work all last week on the 16th floor of the Marriott Hotel and Spa in Stamford, Conn. A two-room lounge there with polished tables, cozy chairs, a faux fireplace, free Wi-Fi and a printer is home to Soundview Coworking, just one of many such spaces popping up around the nation. The defacto Internet co-working headquarters, coworking.pbwiki.com, shows at least one site in more than 30 states.

Co-working spaces, which first appeared in the Bay Area three years ago, are a cross between home, work and Internet-equipped cafe. They are based on the hard-won realization that while avoiding an office is liberating, it's also energizing to have one to which you can go.

Working from home, Starbucks or even the local library is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, users say. You get rid of the hassle of the commute, the over-the-shoulder-boss and the mind-numbing cubicle. But if you stay home, you lose the routine, the companionship and the accountability (napping is tempting). And you spend a lot of time looking for plugs and too much money buying coffee if you go to a public space. (An ongoing dilemma is how much coffee to actually drink, because you don't want to have to leave your laptop unattended to use the bathroom.)

Writers spaces, entrepreneurial incubators and office suites in which individuals can rent a single room have existed for decades. But co-working, with its open-to-all ethos, is a little different.

The Hat Factory in San Francisco was an early site. It began when Brad Neuberg, a computer programmer who was working by himself, wanted company. He rented space in a building and added a new definition to the term co-working. He eventually moved his creation to a rehabbed former hat factory.

Each place has its own personality. The Hat Factory feels like a college dorm, its users say, or, more accurately, like the four-bedroom loft that it actually is. Its residents share it with outsiders during the day, then take it back at night. For $200 a month, you can be an anchor member, get a key and have a desk reserved. The shared area, with a kitchen, living room and large communal table, is available free to drop-ins during business hours.

Soundview, in Stamford, is a bit more formal, as I realized on the first day when the manager, Catherin S. Mahaffey, coolly scanned my shorts and T-shirt and said, ''our members usually dress for work.'' Soundview also looks like what it in fact is -- a concierge suite at a Marriott. In fact, breakfast is served there to those with rooms on the executive floor.

After the hotel guests leave, it is the home base of the Soundview Club, a local yachting and golfing outfit whose members opened the suite to co-working last year because the club wasn't making full use of the space. The monthly fee is $150; there are no drop-ins and you can sit where you like.

Who shows up to which co-working location varies by region. Most of the Hat Factory's clients are in the tech fields clustered in the Silicon Valley, according to Eddie Codel, one of the organizers and a video producer. In Stamford, most of the 20 co-working members are in service industries, and there is a lot of chatting with clients on cellphones, albeit with inside voices.

At Berkeley Coworking in Northern California, the users are a ''purposeful mix,'' said Jonathan Zamick, the founder, who created video games for cellphones out of a sprawling two-story space and last year closed that business and opened this space to co-working.

In order to attract groups beyond computer programmers, he invited an architectural school to hold classes in the space and recruited journalists and documentary filmmakers.

''You want cross-pollination that comes with people of different types of work in the same room,'' Mr. Zamick said.

At Cubes and Crayons in Menlo Park, Calif., most of the clients are women, which is not typical. Child care is part of the package. The 60 members can drop off their children and work in a quiet lounge a few yards away.

However, one mother who does not use the space is M. F. Chapman, the founder of Cubes and Crayons. She said she loves every detail of the place, from the comfy chairs that have lap desks attached (because that's how she likes to work), to the shelves filled with business books (because that's what she likes to read) to the quotations on the walls (things like ''Don't Follow Trends, Start Them'') because that's what inspires her.

But once the space opened in January, she said she realized, ''I wasn't getting any work done when I was there,'' because clients wanted to stop and chat. When she has real work, she now heads home. That's where I interviewed her by phone, while her 3-year-old colored and her 9-month-old cooed in the background.

And that is the lesson of co-working. Getting down to work -- in the zone, all cylinders pumping, time passing unnoticed -- is an alchemy of worker and workspace. You never know what is going to make you click. In the end, it all comes down to putting your bottom in a chair, getting started and ignoring all the possible distractions. Where you do that best can differ by person and by day. It could be your office, your carefully designed office-alternative or your kitchen table with children nearby.

I was able to find it at Soundview, to a point. There were always a few people around, and their presence made it feel purposeful. There was just enough surrounding chatter. So I got to work. The only problem was that I wasn't working on my proposal. However, I did manage to finish this article. Then I repacked my stack of notes and wheeled them home.
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: TELECOMMUTING (89%); HOME BASED EMPLOYMENT (89%); OFFICE PROPERTY (75%); RENTAL PROPERTY (75%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (75%); LIBRARIES (73%); LAPTOP COMPUTERS (70%); PRICE INCREASES (69%); OIL & GAS PRICES (53%); HAT CAP & MILLINERY MFG (50%)
GEOGRAPHIC: SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (54%) CONNECTICUT, USA (77%); CALIFORNIA, USA (74%) UNITED STATES (77%)
LOAD-DATE: June 26, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: DRAWING (DRAWING BY KOREN SHADMI)(pg. G2)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

639 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
June 25, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

An Honor That Bush Is Unlikely To Embrace
BYLINE: By JESSE McKINLEY
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; National Desk; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 353 words
DATELINE: SAN FRANCISCO
Reagan has his highways. Lincoln has his memorial. Washington has the capital (and a state, too). But President Bush may soon be the sole president to have a memorial named after him that you can contribute to from the bathroom.

From the Department of Damned-With-Faint-Praise, a group going by the regal-sounding name of the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is planning to ask voters here to change the name of a prize-winning water treatment plant on the shoreline to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

The plan, naturally hatched in a bar, would place a vote on the November ballot to provide ''an appropriate honor for a truly unique president.''

Supporters say that they have plenty of signatures to qualify the initiative and that the renaming would fit in a long and proud American tradition of poking political figures in the eye.

''Most politicians tend to be narcissistic and egomaniacs,'' said Brian McConnell, an organizer who regularly suits up as Uncle Sam to solicit signatures. ''So it is important for satirists to help define their history rather than letting them define their own history.''

Not surprisingly, those Republicans in a city that voted 83 percent Democratic in 2004 are not thrilled with the idea. Howard Epstein, chairman of the ever-outnumbered San Francisco Republican Party, called the initiative ''an abuse of process.''

''You got a bunch of guys drunk who came up with an idea,'' Mr. Epstein said, ''and want to put on the ballot as a big joke without regard to the city's governance or cost.''

The renaming would take effect on Jan. 20, when the new president is sworn in. And regardless of the measure's outcome, supporters plan to commemorate the inaugural with a synchronized flush of hundreds of thousands of San Francisco toilets, an action that would send a flood of water toward the plant, now called the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant.

''It's a way of doing something physical that's mentally freeing,'' said Stacey Reineccius, 45, a software consultant and entrepreneur who supports the plan. ''It's a weird thing, but it's true.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: US REPUBLICAN PARTY (90%); POLITICAL PARTIES (90%); VOTERS & VOTING (90%); US PRESIDENTS (90%); POLITICS (78%); SEWERAGE SYSTEMS (77%); BALLOTS (76%); UTILITIES INDUSTRY (75%); WATER QUALITY REGULATION (70%); WATER SUPPLY UTILITIES (70%); WATER POLLUTION (70%); WATER QUALITY (69%)
PERSON: GEORGE W BUSH (94%)
GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (93%)
LOAD-DATE: June 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

640 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
June 25, 2008 Wednesday

Correction Appended

Late Edition - Final
Italian Investor Is Charged With Fraud
BYLINE: By GERALDINE FABRIKANT
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 732 words
An Italian businessman who was accused last year by the entrepreneur Ron Burkle of misusing more than $1 million he had put up for investments was arrested on Tuesday and charged with fraud and money laundering.

Raffaello Follieri, who had dated the actress Anne Hathaway, is accused of concocting an elaborate real estate scheme to mislead investors by persuading them that he had a special relationship with the Vatican.

The 29-year-old Mr. Follieri went so far as to claim that he visited the pope whenever he was in Rome, according to the 12-count complaint that was unsealed on Tuesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan.

Judge Henry B. Pitman set bail at $21 million, to be secured by $16 million in cash and property and guaranteed by five financially responsible persons. Mr. Follieri had to surrender all travel documents and was ordered confined to his home in Manhattan with the exception of legal, religious and medical needs. Any trips must be made with an electronic-monitoring device.

After his court appearance, Mr. Follieri, who was said to be suffering from a sinus infection, had what his publicist, Melanie Bonvicino, called ''some sort of attack,'' and was taken to a hospital, according to The Associated Press. No further information on his condition was available.

According to the complaint, Mr. Follieri, the chairman and chief executive of the Follieri Group, told investors that as a result of his relationship with the Vatican, he was able to buy properties from the church at below-market prices and that he had right of first refusal on any properties that the church sold in the United States.

He also said that the Vatican had formally appointed him to manage its financial affairs, the complaint said. The government said that Mr. Follieri had no such connection to the church. In fact, the complaint says, Mr. Follieri had no special rights in terms of buying properties but was simply competing against other bidders.

While Mr. Burkle's investment company, Yucaipa, is not identified in the complaint, it does say that Mr. Follieri raised money to invest in the scheme from a ''certain private equity firm.'' Last year, Yucaipa sued Mr. Follieri in Delaware Chancery Court, contending that Mr. Follieri had used for his personal benefit $1.3 million of the money that it had invested .

At that time, the company had put up more than $55 million in the Follieri Group. Frank Quintero, a spokesman for Yucaipa, declined to comment on the complaint. A spokeswoman for the United States attorney's office declined to confirm that the firm was Yucaipa.

The Follieri Group settled the Yucaipa lawsuit a month ago, according to a person briefed on the resolution but not authorized to speak publicly.

Mr. Follieri, who came to the United States from Italy in 2003, quickly cut a wide swath. Attractive and charming, he rapidly moved into the world of billionaires and political figures. His entree was helped when he met and befriended Douglas Band, a top aide to Bill Clinton who brought Mr. Follieri into contact with the former president and Mr. Burkle.

Mr. Follieri received an onstage thanks from Mr. Clinton after pledging $50 million to the Clinton Global Initiative. The money has not been paid.

Mr. Follieri's business cachet -- his link to the Catholic Church -- was contrived, the government said. It consisted of an administrative employee at the Vatican whom he paid.

Mr. Follieri also hired a relative of a former Vatican official as well as his own father, claiming that his father had a special relationship with the Vatican. In an apparent effort to build ostensible ties to the church, Mr. Follieri also met with clergy and traveled with a monsignor.

The complaint also contends that instead of making investments, Mr. Follieri used the money he raised to indulge in a lifestyle that included the perquisites of the wealthy: a Manhattan apartment overlooking Rockefeller Center, for which he paid $37,000 a month; a house call by his doctor that cost $30,000 and medical expenses for his parents and his girlfriend at the time. The money also went to dog-walking services, vacations and flights on chartered jets, the complaint contends.

Though she is not identified, Ms. Hathaway, the young star of ''The Devil Wears Prada,'' had been dating Mr. Follieri. They broke up recently, according to news reports.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: RELIGION (90%); FRAUD & FINANCIAL CRIME (90%); SUITS & CLAIMS (89%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (89%); PRIVATE EQUITY (78%); ARRESTS (78%); FUNDRAISING (78%); CORPORATE WRONGDOING (77%); MONEY LAUNDERING (77%); MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS (76%); JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (73%); BAIL (73%); REAL ESTATE (72%); SETTLEMENT & COMPROMISE (70%); LAW COURTS & TRIBUNALS (69%); PASSPORTS & VISAS (68%); CATHOLICS & CATHOLICISM (90%); ELECTRONIC MONITOR SENTENCING (78%)
PERSON: RON BURKLE (92%)
GEOGRAPHIC: NEW YORK, NY, USA (92%); ROME, ITALY (79%) NEW YORK, USA (92%); DELAWARE, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (93%); HOLY SEE (90%); ITALY (79%)
LOAD-DATE: June 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
CORRECTION-DATE: June 27, 2008

CORRECTION: An article on Wednesday about the arrest of the Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri on charges of fraud and money laundering misstated his investment relationship with the Yucaipa Companies, the private equity firm controlled by Ron Burkle. Yucaipa put up more than $55 million in a joint venture with Mr. Follieri's company, the Follieri Group -- not in the company itself.
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

641 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
June 25, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

New Jersey Dealing With Solar Policy's Success
BYLINE: By ANTHONY DePALMA
SECTION: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1375 words
With oil prices skyrocketing, demand for solar power is booming. And New Jersey, which has used a rebate program to help install more solar panels than any other state but California, is getting burned by its own success.

There is a backlog of more than 700 applications for the rebates, and property owners have to wait months, even years, to get solar panels installed. The program, which is paid for by surcharges on all utility bills, has been shut down several times over the last three years because applications far outpaced rebate money. Some solar installation companies have had to lay off workers while they waited for rebate checks to be sent.

All this has convinced New Jersey regulators that it is time to wean solar energy from public subsidies altogether. The state plans to replace rebates with energy credits that can be bought and sold on the open market.

As it works out the details of the transition, New Jersey -- not the place most people associate with solar innovations -- finds itself at the forefront of a growing national debate about the role of government in helping stimulate this sector of the energy economy.

New York, Colorado, Maryland and several other states with incentive programs are considering whether to scale back public subsidies so solar power can compete more extensively in an open market. And they are confronting another difficult question: Is that best done by turning to a few large companies, or sticking with smaller businesses that can create more local jobs?

''Obviously, big systems get us to our goals much faster, but we want everybody to participate,'' said Jeanne M. Fox, president of New Jersey's Board of Public Utilities, which proposed the changes and is expected to give them final approval next month.

Ms. Fox said she believes it will be possible to phase out rebates, create a secure market for trading energy credits, welcome large solar system operators and still protect many -- if not all -- small installers.

But some of those smaller operators think the proposed transition will replace a proven success with an untested experiment from which they -- the entrepreneurs who started the solar boom with the help of rebates -- will be excluded.

''The state wants to build a market to suit big companies that have access to huge sources of capital,'' said Bill Hoey, managing member of N.J. Solar Power L.L.C., a $10 million company. ''They could just crush the mid- and small-size market.''

At SunEdison, one of the largest installers in the state and the nation, Mark R. Culpepper, the vice president for strategic marketing, enthusiastically supports New Jersey's transition. He called it ''a pretty normal market evolution'' in which ''very small players will probably go away, while small to mid-sized companies will be acquired by others or go into specific niche markets where they can specialize.''

Similar conflicts are arising all over the country, but the battle is most clearly drawn in New Jersey, where state officials feel compelled to act decisively.

Under a state energy master plan, solar power should account for 2.12 percent of New Jersey's electricity by 2020. But even though more than 3,100 residential and commercial solar systems have been installed during the six years the state has offered rebates, they generate only 0.07 percent of current energy needs.

To reach even that, New Jersey has handed out more than $170 million in rebates. The Board of Public Utilities has estimated that if rebate rates remained unchanged, it would cost nearly $11 billion to get to the 2020 goal. According to state calculations, that would add about 7.5 percent to New Jersey electricity rates, which are already among the highest in the country.

''We need to do things differently because ratepayers can't keep paying for rebates indefinitely,'' Ms. Fox said.

Rebates, which have averaged $20,000 for residential projects and more than $1 million for large commercial installations, would virtually end this year under the state's plan. A limited number for small residential projects producing less than 10 kilowatts would be phased out over the next four years.

In their place, the state would turn to a program it started several years ago that issues energy credits. The concept is simple: Solar projects generate energy credits every year, and the state requires utility companies like PSE&G to buy them to offset carbon emissions from their power plants and to help meet renewable-energy targets. By purchasing credits, the utilities do not actually generate solar power, but they offset the cost of installing and operating solar equipment.

New Jersey plans to greatly expand the program by allowing the credits to be bought and sold like commodities, with long-term contracts and prices set by the open market.

Regulators say that will be fairer to ratepayers and help the state reach its renewable-energy goals faster. They also say the plan provides safeguards for small installers and ensures competition by prohibiting any company from capturing more than 20 percent of a utility's yearly credits.

But the small companies fear that large businesses are poised to take particular advantage of the credit system. Being bigger, they can handle more credits, cover more long-term commitments and secure more advantageous financing than mom-and-pop operations.

SunEdison, based in Maryland, has already made inroads in New Jersey using a new approach -- called power purchase agreements -- that smaller companies do not have the capital to duplicate.

Under those agreements, which the state first allowed in 2004, property owners do not have to buy or operate their solar projects, or handle the sale of energy credits. Instead, they avoid all up-front costs by contracting with SunEdison or other large companies, and bill property owners at fixed rates that are lower than utility company rates.

SunEdison has put up more than 22 solar systems in New Jersey, along with dozens in others states, mostly for large retail companies like Kohl's.

Experts say these purchase agreements can promote the move to solar power. And regulators hope that a vibrant market for energy credits will speed that growth to the point where solar power can compete with conventionally generated electricity.

But Lyle K. Rawlings, president of Advanced Solar Products, in Hopewell, N.J., and vice president of the Mid-Atlantic Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group, said those attempts to make the solar market more competitive could backfire, actually hindering competition by squeezing out smaller companies.

He said that the state's proposed safeguards did not go nearly far enough. While a portion of new projects would be subject for a few years to caps on how many credits one company can control, he said, those caps would not apply to existing solar installations.

''The model they're creating is overcomplicated, fraught with uncertainty and really doesn't protect the small installers who've created this industry,'' Mr. Rawlings said. He said his own company had laid off 4 of its 15 workers in the last few months, and several New Jersey solar companies had gone out of business. ''This is going to lead to a kind of unhealthy market concentration and chaos, like what's already happened in other states.''

Blake Jones, president of Namaste Solar Electric, in Boulder, Colo., and a board member of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association, said his state was considering changes similar to New Jersey's.

He said a major goal of solar incentive programs is creating green jobs. ''On a per-kilowatt basis, more jobs, more local business and more rural economic development is created by small projects and small businesses than medium or large ones,'' he said.

In Maryland, installers hope to persuade regulators to raise the value of energy credits in order to provide more income for small companies.

New York is several steps behind the other states in developing its solar market because of regulations that have limited solar installations to small-scale residential projects. Installers there are watching what happens in New Jersey because they expect to enter a similar debate in the next few years.