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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (9414)	11/16/2002 1:04:36 PM
From: portage	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

>>have you heard a word I have said ??? You're only covering part of the story. The system set up (at the behest of Repub. gov. Pete Wilson, foolishly bought into by the rest) was indeed flawed. And yes, they still haven't figured out how to fix it (ceding control to a national grid controlled by the crooks from Texas is not the answer, though). But it was an experiment, and the assumption was that in passing regulatory oversight to FERC, they would do their job. They turned out to be worse than the SEC under Pitt. They gleefully stepped back, hands off at the behest of the bushcheney energy machine, and let the crimes continue while they taunted California for the crimes they let the energy companies commit. FERC was the main problem here. Price caps normally don't work. They worked in this case, because without them, the incentive was to take plants down to the point of bringing supply below demand, and reaming the state at spot market prices for all remaining sales. FERC should have stopped this, following their charter, but they turned the other way. During these times, the shutdowns were at historic and unjustifiable levels. Evidence is now showing they were coordinated. The link below shows how FERC was complicit in ignoring and hiding this evidence. There was not a real shortage, only a concocted one. Given the flawed system, the price caps, instituted only after the Senate become Democratic and put the heat on FERC, stopped the gaming. This is only a short term solution however, a bandage on the broken pipeline. Supply and demand has interesting quirks in a situation where you can't store the product and there is no ease of entry as a supplier. It leads to the exercise of market power. But you already know that, I'm sure. The whole bloody tale is laid out on the Cal. energy crisis thread, going back a few years. Even including the laissez faire apologists. It was a poorly designed system, set up by those who sang the "free markets solve all problems" tune after a few years of lobbying by Enron and Co. The real failure was by FERC to take effective action once this was realized, and improve the system once the flaws were discovered. Payback to big energy contributors from BushCheney, Inc., pure and simple. It was mainly about getting energy executives onto the stock options gravy train, not about saving money for consumers. Ironically, these companies paid for their crimes through failure in the end. Except the big boy insiders who knew what was happening and who cashed in before the collapse. Now we'll see how many of them end up with stripes on their shoulders. sfgate.com