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

To: Quincy who wrote (1223)	6/12/2002 5:43:29 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 1715

CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER: DID GWB AND THE USAF "STAND DOWN" ON 9/11? Thread, As part and parcel of the woes caused by the Texas crowd with their California energy schemes, there's a bigger story out there some might be curious about....... I'm very troubled by what is appearing to be a massive cover-up of the actual events of Operation 911. Here's some new material I'm running across. I'd like to share it and get reactions if possible. -Ray Unanswered Questions.org is just getting started: unansweredquestions.org Some of their research into the Air Force response is gripping, particularly pay attention to the discussion of Pres. Bush's reaction (noted in section six of the URL below) at the Saratoga school, even after knowing of the first plane crashing before the reading lesson begins, and being informed of the second strike at the WTC, he sits there passively for minutes. Leadership of a different sort. Most curious. Not what I would call a normal response to crisis. unansweredquestions.org Here is Section Six from the above URL: "George W. Bush is made aware of the crisis before he leaves his hotel in Sarasota, Florida, just before 9am.(16) According to Vice-President Dick Cheney, "the secret service... FAA... had open lines after the World trade Center was [hit]." (Meet the Press, 9/16/2001) Cheney says he was whisked into the basement of the White House for his own protection; yet George W. Bush was clearly in a more-vulnerable position: out in the open, a very public arena, schedule well-publicized; and he continues to his appointment in a third-grade classroom. When he is updated not once, not twice, but thrice about the crisis, he continues sitting in the classroom for a full thirty minutes.('AP' 9/12/2001, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/12/2001 Pg. A 20; CNN "Breaking News" 9:25, 9/11/2001) Only later do we hear that George. W Bush is the only one who can order any shootdowns." """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Here's a Quicktime movie of the session at the Sarasota school: buzzflash.com In particular, note the President's reaction at Minute 4:31. He does nothing. How can that be? [[Note: I had best result by saving the file to disk and then running under Quicktime locally.]] """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Here's another site with a lot of questions that we in the public need answers to: scoop.co.nz """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Inquiring minds want to know about some of these details. I think it's very revealing that Executive Order 13233 was imposed soon after 9/11, and Dick Cheney tried to strong arm Daschle from pursuing any investigation. That's a clear red flag. Best, Ray

To: Quincy who wrote (1223)	6/17/2002 7:57:55 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1715

GUILTY! Williams Reverses Itself on Calif. Energy Trades Quincy, I think we can expect to see more confessing of criminal wrongdoing in the weeks ahead. This is fraud, pure and simple.: thestreet.com Williams Reverses Itself on Calif. Energy Trades By Melissa Davis Staff Reporter 06/17/2002 05:56 PM EDT The energy business has another about-face on its hands. Williams confessed Monday to reaping profits during the California power crisis through transactions it had previously denied. Tulsa-based Williams said Monday that it purchased price-capped electricity in California and sold it outside the state at higher prices during a power crisis in the Western U.S. two years ago. Williams had denied engaging in such transactions as recently as two weeks ago. In its comments Monday, the company said the sales came at prices below the price caps. The comments come just a week after the company, which had long indicated it wanted to focus its resources increasingly on the lucrative but risky power-trading business, sharply reduced the amount of capital it would commit to power trading. Aquila (ILA:NYSE - news - commentary - research - analysis) followed suit Monday, slashing its earnings forecasts and saying trading would account for almost none of its coming-year profits. FERC on the Lurk Williams reversed its stand on the California electric trades Monday, when it was forced to provide detailed trading information to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. FERC had threatened to yank the rate-setting authority of Williams and three other energy traders if they failed to fully cooperate with the agency's investigation into possible abuses in the Western power market. Williams has begun each of the last three weeks with revelations regarding a once-soaring energy trading operation that it now plans to dramatically reduce. The company's stock, which closed Monday after a 20-cent gain at $7.55, is near decadelong lows as investors fret about the viability of the energy trading industry as a whole. Williams has been among the hardest hit companies in the sector. Even so, the company has remained optimistic and continues to roundly deny it engaged in any improper trading practices. Even after reversing field Monday on the questionable power trades, Williams seemed to indicate that it had done nothing wrong. "Consistent with the company's trading practices," Williams said in a statement, "the price for that exported power was at or below temporary price caps that were in effect at the time." Construction Paper Williams promised to make public Monday's full FERC filing as soon as FERC confirms that it's been received. In the meantime, Williams said it is working constructively with the regulatory body. "We will continue to cooperate fully with government regulators who are investigating the California energy crisis with the hope of bringing this matter to a prompt conclusion," said Williams Chief Executive Steve Malcolm. Regulatory probes and revelations that many energy companies made trades solely to boost their numbers have chased investors out of the once-hot sector. Williams and its rivals now face the prospect of possible debt downgrades, which could provoke further investor flight and make it more difficult for these companies to bolster their balance sheets.

To: Quincy who wrote (1223)	6/18/2002 2:13:19 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 1715

Energy Monitor Failed to Do Job Power: Congressional watchdog finds that FERC lacked expertise and clout to ensure fair electricity prices during California energy crisis. latimes.com By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON -- Federal energy regulators failed to set up measures to protect consumers when they approved California's deregulation scheme and are still outgunned by energy traders a year after the energy crisis that hobbled the state, according to the findings of a congressional investigation to be released today. The report by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission still lacks the expertise and clout to protect consumers from price gouging and other maneuvers, despite "hopeful" changes under its new chairman. "FERC is not adequately performing the oversight that is needed to ensure that the prices produced by these markets are just and reasonable, and therefore, it is not fulfilling its regulatory mandate," said the GAO report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times. The report, the strongest and most detailed criticism of federal energy regulators to date by the GAO, prompted a concession by FERC Chairman Patrick H. Wood III that the agency had fallen down on the job during the energy crisis. "The commission had not previously focused its efforts clearly enough to succeed," Wood wrote the GAO in response. "That has now changed." Wood is setting up a new oversight and investigations office while aggressively pursuing a probe of alleged market manipulation in California and the West. The investigation was given new momentum by the disclosure last month of internal Enron Corp. memos indicating that its traders used various ploys to manipulate the California energy market. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, said he would ask the GAO to monitor the new energy investigations office to ensure that Wood lives up to his promise. "If we are to restore consumers' and investors' badly shaken confidence in our energy markets ... we will first have to restore confidence in the regulatory system," Lieberman said in a statement. FERC's fitful regulatory efforts have been undermined by insufficient expertise with competitive electricity markets, a continually changing agency leadership and the lack of legal authority to impose penalties that "bite" companies that engage in market manipulation, the GAO report found. FERC, which functions like a national utilities commission, is charged with ensuring "just and reasonable" rates in wholesale electricity markets. It was heavily criticized by public officials as remaining aloof while California's energy crisis escalated during late 2000 and early 2001. Under pressure, the agency imposed price limits throughout the West last summer, an act credited with belatedly calming the markets. FERC is considering California's petition for $9 billion in refunds for alleged overcharges and for revising long-term power contracts negotiated during the crisis. The investigators found that FERC was adept at monitoring electric utilities in the previous era of government-regulated prices but that it never made the transition to being a watchdog in the freewheeling world of unregulated markets. Nonetheless, FERC gave its approval to the deregulation plans of California and other states. The agency's regulatory weaknesses meant that the states would be on their own if they got into trouble, as California soon found out. In a revealing survey, 37% of FERC enforcement staffers told GAO investigators that their agency was ineffective in detecting monopolistic abuses in wholesale electricity markets. Among enforcement staffers, 33% said the agency did a poor job of analyzing market data to determine if prices are inflated, compared with 28% who said FERC performed adequately. Thirty-nine percent said the agency's top management had failed to give clear and concise directions. The agency has had four chairmen in the last five years. Nearly three-fourths of the staff told the GAO that FERC's previous major effort to reinvent itself—a 1997 reorganization called "FERC First"—had been of little or no help in making it a better watchdog. "While many employees told us that overall, FERC First was a failure, several stated that it was a disaster," the report said. The GAO investigation, requested by Sen. Jean Carnahan (D-Mo.), found that previous efforts by the agency to improve as a watchdog had failed to produce results. "Most of these actions have been incomplete or limited in their effectiveness," the report said. Last summer, for example, then-FERC Chairman Curtis L. Hebert Jr. announced the opening of a high-tech "market observation resource room." Staffers equipped with speedy computers and sophisticated hardware would track energy markets around the country, ready to react to the first sign of an unexplained price spike. But FERC has never subscribed to information services that would allow it to obtain the names and other details about parties trading in a large slice of the markets, the GAO found. The result is like a window on the markets with the blinds half-lowered. Its main use is not as an enforcement tool but to educate staffers about how energy trading works, the report said. "FERC has not yet been able to use the [market observation] room to its full regulatory and oversight potential," the report said. Although FERC is the principal federal agency overseeing electricity and natural gas markets, the GAO found that 75-year-old federal laws give the agency insufficient penalties to pose a credible deterrent against market abuses. "No section of [federal law] allows FERC to levy monetary penalties against market participants who charge unjust or unreasonable rates for electricity," the report said. "Without a meaningful range of penalties, FERC lacks adequate enforcement 'bite' to deter anticompetitive behavior or other violations." The agency has authority to order limited refunds and to revoke a company's trading rights. It may take several years for FERC to become a better watchdog, investigators cautioned. In the meantime, state and regional regulators will be the main line of defense protecting consumers. Moreover, the agency may experience massive turnover of its professional staff in the next few years. The GAO found that more than a quarter of the staff will be eligible for retirement by 2005. "Absent an effective regulatory and oversight approach," the report concluded, "FERC lacks assurance that today's energy markets are producing interstate wholesale natural gas and electricity prices that are just and reasonable."