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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (2148)	4/2/2001 6:05:58 PM
From: TigerPaw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

CA screwed up on the deregulation It's not like the state took a vote and messed it up. The Republican former governor in conjunction with energy mavens like Dick Cheney and Junior George passed laws such that the power generation was sold off to their cronies who were now free to charge whatever they wanted. This was the state version of refinancing the pension fund or something to rob the citizens of the benefits they had built up through years of careful management. TP

To: jttmab who wrote (2148)	4/2/2001 8:36:48 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 93284

It appears that what they did was simply shut down plants, they claimed for maintenance. This created the shortage and they were able to charge exorbitant prices. CA was also guilty. No new major power plant has been built here in over 10 years. Part of this was environmental objections; part was PGE and SoCalEdison claiming no new plants were needed and refusing to build any. While this lack of construction happened, the population of the state grew by 25%. You gotta wonder what the geniuses at the two major power companies were thinking. (Maybe they thought they would be the beneficiaries rather than the victims.) As part of the deregulation PGE and SoCalEdison had to sell 2/3 to 3/4 of their power generating plants - -to those Texas profiteers everyone here is now screaming about. These are the boys who shut plants down at the drop of a kilowatt. CA, as you said, also refused to allow PGE and SoCalEdison to rise rates. They had to buy power from those profiteers and would now be bankrupt except for state aid. As the crisis grew from a small, impending problem to a statewide catastrophe, Gray Davis sat on his hands and did nothing about the situation. A year ago he was thought to be a shoo-in for re-election in 2002 and in the running for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2004. Now he will be lucky if his own party doesn't dump him. If it weren't so disastrous, it would be uproariously funny. The sixth-largest economy in the world cripples itself.