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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (393891)	4/17/2003 1:55:52 AM
From: American Spirit	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Clinton unlike Bush appointed people from different parties and viewpoints. Bush only appoints hard right-wing lobbyist types.

To: DavesM who wrote (393891)	4/17/2003 2:30:01 AM
From: Kevin Rose	Respond to of 769670

Well, that's not quite what happened, from what I saw and read. The Clinton administration put all sorts of pressure on FERC to institute price caps, but FERC believed in a non-regulated market, and specifically resisted price caps. They finally took action in Dec 2001, but only half-ass remedies. They were still not convinced that it was anything other than a natural imbalance of supply and demand. Once Bush took over, FERC was relieved of the federal pressure to do something. Bush stated time and again that price caps were not the answer. His answer was to expediate permits for more power plants. The crisis reached a peak in May/June 2001; rolling blackouts looked to be a certainty. It was suspected even then that the energy companies were manipulating the markets to drive up prices to exorbinant levels. Only when it was apparent that the crisis was having a severe economic impact (and potentially damaging to the GOP 2002 elections) and only when it looked as if the crisis would spread outside of California did Bush step in with the caps (and then very reluctantly). Oh, and how about this gem, from June 2001: "With federal energy regulators expected to clamp down on wholesale electricity prices in the West, President George W. Bush on Monday reiterated his belief that price controls will do nothing to solve the energy crunch." Shows how much W really didn't know about economics and energy. Once the price caps were in place - BAM - the crisis was over. The gouging stopped, the crooks scurried away with billions. Ok, now a quiz: who said the following? "Basically, what they're saying in California is, "We want the FERC to put price caps on wholesale electricity prices." That just camouflages the problem. It doesn't solve the problem. We have a supply/demand imbalance in California--too much demand, too little supply ... I prefer to let the market sift that out. When the governor put on price caps back in October, we, along with another company, cancelled the construction of a couple of big power plant peaking plants, which would have been available for this summer, because we couldn't justify making those big investments in peaking plants, which will just run a few days during the year. Price caps do not solve the problem, but price caps just require the politicians to decide who's going to be curtailed."