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Pastimes : The California Energy Crisis - Information & Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (1057)	1/22/2002 2:41:38 PM
From: Gordon A. Langston	Respond to of 1715

They forgot LTCM too, but who's keeping score. No one talks much about Chrysler or the S&L crisis. If Davis is re-elected it will prove that people have no real interest in fixing blame.

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (1057)	1/23/2002 12:08:29 AM
From: portage	Respond to of 1715

Hi Bearcat. Hope things are well with you. I haven't really forgotten the state's role in this. I was pissed early on when the plan started to go awry, and I realized that there had been very little public debate about the whole issue. I found the initial mailings trying to get me to choose a new provider in the mid 90s to be annoying, and didn't really know what was going on. I would learn soon enough. The bill was really passed in the dark of night, led by Pete Wilson, but seemingly bought into by both parties in the legislature, who were all too glad to go along without really understanding it. The state gets blasted alot for capping retail prices, and one can certainly understand this. But, the economic and political implications of letting the marketers charge unlimited rates (while they could manipulate supply and shut down plants to help themselves) was truly horrific. It was downright scary being here and hearing about paying $80 to $90 billion (statewide) more than rates at the national average, when the control all seemed to be on one side of the equation. Had FERC been flexible enough to institute a wholesale cap that was still higher than anywhere nationally, but not enough to destroy our economy, I think you'd have found us bending on the retail side earlier. But that idea was loudly denounced by the bush side. I want to think that the state felt the FERC would be there to provide some cover under their "just and reasonable price" mandate, as part of a bargain for us being the first to take a risk in this brave new world. But who knows ? I was certainly stunned at their intentional, in your face indifference. To me, this is sort of a regional/state's rights issue. Funny how both parties get hypocritical : Repubs support states rights when they can overrule environmental and consumer regulations, but ignore them when Texas energy companies want to control a national grid overseen by their friends at the federal level FERC. Demos do likewise when it's convenient for their core beliefs. But in the end, economic development is very much a state run issue, and it depends highly on energy supply. I think one big mistake made here was to trust that outsiders could see things as a "good for the state" issue, rather than wanting to suck it all off for their shareholders. Which is why I still oppose federal grid control, especially if operated by a few unaccountable energy marketing vultures. If there's another way to bring some of the benefits of dereg while maintaining reasonable state control, I'm open to it. That's not what I see coming out of Washington DC though -- only Texas has walled itself off, even though the energy marketers are (were?) mostly from there (hmmm, what do you think they know about how a grid run by outsiders could siphon off their control and dollars ?). Bottom line, and as Enron has proven to me, I don't trust these guys with something as critical as our energy suppy (or water supply, or timber resources, etc.). Now, Davis didn't do everything right, but you should have been here and felt the pressure when he signed the contracts, having absolutely no indicator that FERC or DC would step in with temporary caps (in fact, they were saying otherwise at the time). He really had few other reasonable choices, but the party of Pete Wilson is now all over him, all ironically due to a policy that their man championed. The perfect political coup, and Bush helped seal the deal at our expense, and I'm sure knowing that it would hurt Davis. The height of cynicism. I've never been a big Davis fan, but not because of the energy thing. He really did care about trying to protect the average resident from the out of control gouging situation. He's a money grubber, as beholden to big bucks as anyone. But he's a hell of a lot better than the Cro-Magnon, Lundgren, that he faced in the last election. I'm actually going to take a look at this maverick repub Riordan in this year's election. The other two repubs are corporate clones with miserably out of step social policies, but Riordan has some interesting moderate viewpoints. The bedrock conservatives hate him, so I'm all ears, sounds good to me. I'll probably end up holding my nose and voting for Davis though. The best thing may be that now we won't have to suffer Davis' delusions of running for President - and we'll get a real, solid candidate to unseat Bush, the puppet of the crony conservatives.