CALIFORNIA
CAPITOLWEEK #530
Energy Summt
Title, white on black,
reading “December 2000”…
((Governor Gray Davis))
The problem
is, I don’t have control over the process.
January 2001…
((Governor Gray Davis))
California’s
deregulation scheme is a colossal and dangerous failure.
February 2001…
((Governor Gray Davis))
I am not
going to ask the ratepayers to accept a disproportionate burden. If I wanted to raise rates, I could solve
this problem in twenty minutes.
March 2001…
((Governor Gray Davis))
The cheapest
megawatt you can buy this summer is the one you don’t have to purchase.
“Summer 2001?” graphic
followed by a fade to Capitolweek set
((Melissa))
Welcome to
California Capitolweek. That last
statement by the Governor was about summer conservation, which by itself is not
enough to stop our energy crisis from spinning out of control.
((Jack))
And just a
note, we are taping this program Thursday, just a few hours before Governor
Davis’ scheduled statewide address where he is expected to discuss what to expect
this summer and the recent rate increases.
((Melissa))
That
increase is over forty percent higher than last year’s rates. Still, power experts say that might not
provide enough cash to cover mounting demand in the coming months.
((Jack))
We have covered
the major players in this crisis for another energy summit to try to pinpoint
why this situation seems to be spinning out of control.
Joining us
are State Treasurer Phil Angelides…
Public
Utilities Commissioner Carl Wood, an appointee of Governor Gray Davis…
And John
Nelson of Pacific Gas and Electric…
((Melissa))
Also with
us, Lenny Goldberg, representing The Utility Reform Network or TURN…
And Gary
Ackerman with the Western Power Trading Forum which is a collection of more
than thirty power producers…
Thank you
all for being with us.
((Jack))
Carl, let’s
start with you. We just saw the largest
electric rate increase in California history.
Is that going to do it? Can you
stipulate that we will not have to have more rate increases in the future?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities Commissioner))
We don’t
know what the future is going to bring.
We have a fair amount of confidence that the size of the rate increase
that we voted out last week was appropriate for the current situation based on
what we know about the actual cost of electricity in the market as well as the
other inputs into the system.
((Jack))
So there
will be no more rate increases?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
I’m not
going to make that commitment unless you offer a time frame, and even if you
do, we don’t know what this out of control market is going to do. We have generators and power brokers who are
operating in this state who are charging outrageous and unlawful rates, and we
have the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which refuses to enforce the
law. Under those circumstances it is
not possible to make definite predictions.
((Melissa))
John, as we
look ahead, a lot of consumers are concerned not only with rate increases but
blackouts. Will these rate hikes
prevent blackouts?
((John Nelson, PG&E))
Not
likely. The problem—in addition to the
high prices, broken market, and the state now experiencing what the utilities
have for a year—is that we have a shortage of electricity in California and the
West Coast. We don’t generate as much
electricity as we use here. We are also
having increasing difficulty in importing electricity from the Pacific
Northwest and the Southwest, so those factors coupled with the high prices mean
that there may not be enough electricity on peak demand days, the hottest days
of the summer.
((Jack))
So we get
both very high rates—California’s rates with the new rate structure would be
almost the highest in the country. I
think Hawaii has a bit higher rates, but perhaps the highest rates in the
continental United States—plus blackouts.
That’s what we need to look forward to this summer?
((John Nelson, PG&E))
It’s
entirely possible. This rate hike is
going to go to paying the state now that the state is buying electricity—
((Jack))
And those
rates might not be enough?
((Carl Woods, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
I believe
the rates will be sufficient to deal with the immediate situation that we’re
in, but the rate increase is not going to preclude blackouts.
((Melissa))
Phil, we’re
spending around fifty million [dollars] a day to keep the lights on. Can we continue to keep spending that kind
of money?
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, the
fact is there are limits on not only what the state can do but what homeowners
and businesses can afford, and, you know, this is a very complicated issue, but
at some levels it’s very simple. What
has happened in the last year is that the power generators and suppliers have
hiked their prices by tenfold. It has
been an enormous price gouging operation, and it is now threatening to drag
down the most successful economy in the nation. The Bush administration, for whatever reason, is sitting on its
hands, unwilling to crack down on these generators, and so we’re spending all
our time in California trying to figure out how to pay these outrageous prices,
and I think the time has come to spend more of our time thinking about how we
get this system under control. Earlier
in the year, I had proposed, and Senator John Burton was carrying, a bill to
create a state power authority, so we can own and control more of the
electricity here in the state. I grew
up here in Sacramento where we have public power, and it’s worked very well. Ironically, we have this broken private
market, but in Sacramento and Los Angeles and for seven million other
Californians, there is public power that is providing cheap and reliable public
power, and I think the time has come to address the real problem which is the
generators who have hiked their prices by ten times, leading to these really
obscene rate increases that we’re going to see in this state that are going to
drag down the economy, and I think it’s time for an excess profits tax, and,
frankly, I think it’s time for us to consider taking back the plants that these
generators required.
((Jack))
Gary,
you’ve heard price gouging, the seizing of plants—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Yes.
((Jack))
Excess
profits tax. Why do the prices have to
be so high?
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power Trading
Forum))
Well, they
don’t have to be so high, but let me tell you something: the generator market
in the Western United States is no more broken than the bond market that Phil
is going to be selling California bonds into.
You look at that market and the people who are behind it, and I defy one
person to tell me, how are my members who are selling power not only in the
state but across state boundaries manipulating prices? No one can seem to tell me that answer—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
All right,
are your prices—are your costs up
tenfold?
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Costs are not the
issue. The issue is value, and you have
to explain to me, for example, why prices in the northwest are thirty percent
higher than they are in California.
People listen to you, Phil, and say, “Why is he whining so much? We’re paying more than California.”
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
For sixty
years, federal law dictated that wholesale electricity prices had to be just
and reasonable, and during that time, that always meant that they were in some
way connected to the underlying cost of production plus the opportunity to make
a reasonable profit. In the last couple
of years, we have had a deference by the Ferc, the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission, to the market outcomes.
Well, as long as market outcomes approximate the cost of production plus
a reasonable profit, sure, that’s just and reasonable, but how can anyone say
that price which are between five and ten times what we know to be the actual,
underlying costs are just and reasonable?
That tortures the meaning of the English language. Those words have no meaning anymore.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
They have
meaning, Carl.
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities Commissioner))
The words
of the law have not changed. It’s only
been the enforcement of the law that has been changed. It's been abandoned, and as a result, the
people you represent have been able to extort and gouge the consumers, the
utilities, and the state of California.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Carl, it’s a
fantasy that you hold that people sit there and somehow manipulate the
prices. You still can’t tell me how
these people do this. I sit on the
trading floors; I witness what these people do. I sit on the New York Stock Exchange floor; I watch what those
people do. I watch the people on the
Chicago Board of Trade; I see what those people do. How are these people manipulating?
((Melissa))
Lenny,
let’s let you go ahead.
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
Well, first
of all, in the gas market we have seen spikes based on total manipulation when
the parent utility sold pipeline capacity to their affiliate who then sold it
at outrageous prices. Second, we’ve seen
megawatt laundering where somebody will send power out of state, and sell it
back into state at a tremendously marked-up amount. We saw one plant with a contract to provide reliability services
say, “Oh, the plant is down.
Sorry, but our neighbor plant
will sell that power at ten times the price,” but they don’t have to
manipulate. The market is fundamentally
broken. We almost bankrupted San Diego
until the legislature stepped in. We
almost bankrupted the utilities until the state stepped in. We’re almost bankrupting the state, until
the prices are rising, and we’re going to bankrupt the businesses and consumers
unless the Feds step in, the state steps in.
Phil Angelides is doing everything he can, and the PUC is doing
everything that it can.
((Melissa))
Let’s talk
about the bankruptcy issue. The bottom
line is we’re still looking at rates going up.
Gary, you’re saying we need the power; Lenny, you’re saying we can’t pay
that much for it. It looks now like the
power producers are seen as the bad guys.
It wasn’t that long ago that the utilities were in the hot seat,
John. Why is it that there is such an
effort to avoid bankruptcy? We hear a
lot of consumers now say, “What’s so bad about bankruptcy?”
((John Nelson, PG&E))
Well, the
biggest concern we at the utilities have and the biggest concern that the state
should have about bankruptcy is no one knows the answers to those
questions. The powers that a federal
bankruptcy judge would have are ill defined.
There’s never been a bankruptcy like this of this size; there’s never
been a bankruptcy of a utility where you have a negative cash flow.
((Melissa))
Is it fair,
though, to ask consumers to be involved in a bailout when the utilities did
support deregulation? You know, it was
going well for a while, and now it isn’t.
((John Nelson, PG&E))
Well, I
think everybody at this table supported deregulation, so to unfairly say that
the utilities—
((Jack))
John, how close to
bankruptcy is PG&E at this point?
For example, Southern California Edison has another deadline coming up
next week for loans they may have defaulted in the past. The banks are giving them some time. I’m sure the banks are giving PG&E some
time, but when does that run out?
((John Nelson, PG&E))
We, on a
daily basis, have to review circumstances in the state, actions by the PUC,
actions by the—
((Jack))
So somebody
could take PG&E into bankruptcy involuntarily at any time?
((John Nelson, PG&E))
At any
time. We would have no control over
that. We would have twenty days to try
to respond and convince a judge that that is not warranted. So far, our creditors have been willing to
watch and wait and hope that the state takes corrective action.
((Jack))
Just to
back up so that we can gather all this information for viewers. We have a very large rate increase
coming. We are not stopping the
potential bankruptcy. We have a problem
with not just rate increases but blackouts as well. There’s the possibility of additional rate increases on top of
that. This is all coming down the
road. We’re paying for our power,
basically, with a bond issue that you have to float in a couple of months. It’s for ten billion dollars. Is that enough money to pay for the power.
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, let
me just tell you. Ten billion dollars
won’t go very far to pay the ransom of the generators, and I want to get us
back to basics here. What do we face as
a problem. We can talk about the small
pieces of it: the transmission lines, the bankruptcy, and our cash flows, but
here’s the essential issue. We do have
a shortage of power, and we need to build new capacity. We need to conserve more, but at the heart
of it, we have a broken, private power market where generators have hiked their
prices by ten times, and we can’t borrow enough, businesses can’t pay enough,
homeowners can’t pay enough to pay the ransom that they want, and, you know,
Gary talks about whining. I don’t think
it’s whining to be concerned about manufacturing businesses all over the
state. I don’t think it’s whining to
talk about the restaurateur I saw the other day who was almost in tears as his
bills are going up three and four times.
I don’t think it’s going to be called whining when the agricultural
industry, during the perishable packaging season, experiences blackouts, and so
I want to be clear that I think that this private market has failed, and this
is a story as old as Hiriam Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt. Power is not just a commodity to be traded
by guys looking at a screen and saying, “Yippee” every time their prices go
up. It’s an essential of life, and I
think that we need to have more public power in this state, and we need to
knock back these generators. What we need
to do is either take their plants back or levy an excess profits tax. They’re out of control, and the only thing
commodity brokers understand is probably a punch in the nose.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Well,
here’s my nose, Phil, come and have at it—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
No, I don’t
mean you personally, Gary.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
No, I know—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
You guys
are killing the golden goose.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power Trading
Forum))
No, I think
the behavior of the people who trade this power is no different than it is in
any other market. The basic and
fundamental misunderstanding that the legislators and the Governor have in this
state is that they don’t understand markets; they don’t understand how they
work; they didn’t take any protective measures to protect consumers from higher
prices. They could have. It’s done elsewhere in other parts of the
country. It’s done in the Northwest and
the Southwest, but not here. We made a
fundamental error in that respect, and we're paying for our mistake.
((Phil Anglides, State Treasurer))
Do you
support price caps?
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Some of my
members do; some of my members do not.
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
I think
Gary is entirely right in that we shouldn’t expect these power
brokers and marketers to behave themselves.
They’re not going to in a lawless environment.
It’s like asking a tiger to go on a vegetarian diet; that is not the
nature of the beast. On the other
hand, you don’t let tigers loose on the streets of Sacramento. We keep them under certain kinds of controls.
That’s the socially responsible thing to do.
Hiriam Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt recognized this.
We put laws into place to guarantee that this essential service—not
just a commodity, but a service—will be available to us at just and reasonable
prices. We can’t put it at the mercy
of a broken market. We don’t have
any market enforcement at this time, and the tigers are loose, and they are
threatening us.
((Jack))
Carl, who
is in charge of this? Is it the Public
Utilities Commission that is in charge?
Is the Governor in charge? I
mean, we had the Governor come out and say, basically, that he was surprised
when the Public Utilities Commission took that action on the rates. Who’s running the show?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
When we
deregulated, we dispersed the authority that used to reside within the Public
Utilites Commission. The PUC continues
to be an independent, regulatory body.
We have defined but limited authority over this situation. Frankly, nobody has the full authority to
set the situation right, or somebody would have done it already.
((Jack))
So this
energy crisis has a life of its own?
It’s literally spinning out of control.
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
No. It is so easy to resolve. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has
completely abdicated. Now, we do
understand markets. We know that when
there is a demand we have basic amounts that we need; it’s relatively inelastic
and supply is short. You have inelastic
supply, you have inelastic demand; what do you get? You get infinite prices, and that’s what these guys are charging
us. You don’t have to be colluding to
have a broken market, but there is a solution.
The Bush administration, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission—when
we are pulling twenty, twenty-five thousand megawatts, half of our load,
there’s still plenty of supply, we’re still paying three hundred dollars a
megawatt hour which is why these prices are spinning out of control—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Lenny, how
is three hundred dollars infinite?
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
Well,
sometimes it’s three hundred, sometimes it’s a thousand—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
No, let’s
talk about three hundred—
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
And then this
summer, they’ll be five hundred—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
You keep on
saying that prices are infinite, but market prices are not.
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
Three
hundred has no relationship to cost, no relationship to cost.
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, let’s
put this in perspective. The generators
under deregulation bought a set of power plants in 1997 for about 3.1 billion
dollars. The state alone has paid more
than four billion dollars for power in the last few months. It is out of control, and clearly if the
Bush administration won’t act, we—here’s the answer to your question: we must
take into our own hands controlling these prices either by taking back these
plants—
((Melissa))
We may not
be able to—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Putting out
an excess profits tax or doing whatever else we can to regulate that market.
((Jack))
Who is in
charge of doing that? Should the
Governor be doing that? Should the
Public Utilities Commission be doing that?
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, I
would urge the Governor, as a fellow member of my party, to have a very central
focus on the essential problem here which is power generation market that is
out of control and damaging the state very badly.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
If the
state—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
And I don’t
say that these are bad people. They’re
just out of control in terms of their pricing.
It’s just what they will do.
They will charge as much as they can, and it’s what we’ve always
recognized in America. There are some
things, like water, transportation, a stable banking system that require a
measure of public control to work for everybody.
((Melissa))
Carl, could
we afford to wait for federal price caps?
If you’re a consumer and you’re looking at rate increases that may or
may not be retroactive back until March, isn’t time of the essence here?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
Sure, and
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should have acted at the beginning of
last summer, once it was clear. It was
clear by July to everybody that this market was out of control. The report that the Governor asked for from
President Lynch, the commission, and the Electricity Oversight Board that came
up in late July defined what the problem was, and there should have been action
by the federal government at that time, so, no, we can’t afford to wait. We haven’t been able to afford to wait since
last summer.
((Melissa))
So what are
we doing now to avoid another rate increase for consumers before the summer?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
Well, we
are trying to do what is within the power of the state to do. At the Public Utilities Commission, we,
first have all, have ordered the rate increase that you’ve mentioned. We are also dealing with protocols for
rolling blackouts because we see them coming.
We are putting into place programs to encourage, especially businesses,
to ramp down their load in exchange for compensation.
((Melissa))
Will the
blackouts be longer this summer, Carl?
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
I think that
is a reasonable expectation. We don’t
know. We don’t know how the market is
going to behave; we don’t know how these—you know, we’ve never before witnessed
a situation like we have right now where we have moderate loads that were
comparable to what we saw last year, and, yet, these generators that Mr.
Ackerman represents are not coming in with the power. They’re not delivering the power for some reason. Now, it may not be collusion. It may just be that all their units happen
to be down at this time—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
For some
reason? 5.5 billion dollars of delivery
since October. For some reason? I think I know the reason.
((Melissa))
What is the
reason?
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, in
other words, we haven’t paid the full ransom because the state and the economy
and the people of the state don’t have the money to pay the full bill. Look, you’ve already driven the utilities to
the brink of bankruptcy; you are know putting enormous pressure on the state of
California where we’re now emptying our coffers, and now what you want is for
rates to be raised so that every family and business in the state can barely
pay their bill.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Okay Phil—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
You need to
take your foot off our throat.
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power
Trading Forum))
Okay, Phil,
now who’s talking about lawlessness.
Let’s just take the matter into our own hands and hang them; that’s what
I’m hearing, and second of all, the people who started this problem are those
who froze retail rates and exposing their customers to the unmitigated, as it
turns out, increase in wholesale rates—no, just increase in wholesale rates,
and this imbalance causes—
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
You know,
that’s just a ridiculous comment because we were paying six cents when the
market price of electricity was three cents.
It never went to six cents; it never went to nine cents, which the PUC
has now raised it to; It just jumped to thirty cents. As Treasurer Angelides said, there is no way the state of
California, its businesses, and its homeowners can pay the ransom that they’re
asking. Let me say this about the rate
increases; I think the Public Utilities Commission, as much as we as consumers
do not like rate increases, have attempted to protect lower income families and
smaller users and have been trying to structure rates such that there is a
strong incentive to conserve, so I think that’s a step forward.
((Melissa))
If it had
been addressed earlier, could the rate increase been lower?
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
Unless you
fix the market, it does not matter—
((Gary Ackerman, Western Power Trading
Forum))
To answer
your question, yes. It could have been
mitigated to some degree because more people who would have been importing
power into California would have been paid, and as being paid, they would have
provided more power. It would have
helped out some.
((Jack))
Phil, as a
taxpayer, you’re going to be spending my money in the future, and I want to
know how much of it you’re going to spend and how much we have to spend. The bond issue is for ten billion dollars to
pay for the power the state is purchasing to keep these lights on. That’s ten billion dollars, right? There’s a discussion about purchasing either
the hydroelectric facilities or the power line grid. Would that take an additional bond issue, more money on top of
that?
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Let me
start at the beginning. The state had
to step in to keep the lights on, and so the state has been using its general
funds, monies otherwise intended for education, healthcare, and transportation
to buy energy. Yesterday, we announced
that we had arranged a four billion dollar loan to repay the general fund. By June, we hope to sell ten billion dollars
worth of bonds which pretty much—
((Jack))
That pays
for power though, right?
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Yeah, but
it will only be enough to pay for power that we’ve bought since January and
probably through to September at which point we’re back at the essential issue:
if the generators continue to charge what they’re charging, the ratepayers are
going to have to pay enormous sums on their rates. We can’t borrow enough to pay their bill. We just have to keep borrowing and borrowing
and borrowing.
((Jack))
When you
borrow that, you have to pay it back—
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Correct.
((Jack))
With
interest.
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Correct.
((Jack))
And that
interest I pay for as a taxpayer out of the general fund.
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
Well, out
of the rates—
((Jack))
So, I’m
paying for the power, plus on top of that, I’m paying for the cost of financing
that power.
((Phil Angelides, State Treasurer))
The problem
is, Jack, if they keep charging us an arm and a leg for power, it’s like a
homeowner; you can only take so many home equity loans before your home gets
foreclosed. You keep borrowing and
borrowing and borrowing, and you finally lose your home, and that’s what’s
going to happen to the people of California unless we get these guys under
control.
((Melissa))
John, from
a utility perspective, is PG&E closer to maybe giving up some hydroelectric
assets or some of the transmission grid?
Would that be something that would maybe be a step in the right
direction?
((John Nelson, Pacific Gas &
Electric))
Well, we’ve
been in negotiations with the Governor on that exact topic as has Southern
California Edison for months now. There
hasn’t been a great deal of progress, but there has been some steady
progress. Our ultimate position is that
it is a fundamental unfairness, particularly now that the treasurer and state
understand that there is this terrible inequity and power costs much more than
people are paying for it, there is a fundamental unfairness to say to the
utilities that, “You’re going to be the only victims. We’re going to liquidate your companies to pay for these power
bills,” so we’re will to be part of the solution. We’ve pledged our generation at cost-based rates. No one else at this table or anywhere else
in the state has done that, but what we’re not interested in doing is unfairly
liquidating our company to pay our customers’ power bills.
((Melissa))
Months ago,
you addressed the PUC and said that you had to have long-term contracts. It was a decision that, at the time, the PUC
did not go for. Now, the state is
involved in some long-term contracts.
Is there some bitterness about that?
Do you feel that if you had been granted long-term contracts a long time
ago that we wouldn’t all be sitting at this table now?
((John Nelson, Pacific Gas &
Electric))
They would
have been a big part of the solution.
They would have certainly helped.
It’s hard to say that we would have avoided this because we still have a
fundamental shortage. I don’t know if
bitterness is the right word, but there certainly is an irony in what little we
know about the contracts that the Governor has entered into, none of those
contracts apparently meet the guidelines that the PUC was considering setting
forth for the utilities. They’ve never
let us adopt them; they’ve never let us do them, but the state doesn’t even
meet the requirements—
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
That isn’t
true. We’ve—since August eighth of last
year, we have permitted utilities to enter into long-term contracts—
((John Nelson, Pacific Gas &
Electric))
But you
refuse to tell us how to do so or set up the guidelines. The Commission itself has repeatedly taken
up the issue of giving us guidelines and has refused to do it. You’ve had them on your docket for months
and months.
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
The
utilities had two options. They could
either enter into long-term contracts and face a reasonableness review after
the fact—
((John Nelson, Pacific Gas &
Electric))
Years
later.
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
Which is
not inconsistent with the way the PUC has regulated the utilities since time
immemorial—
((John Nelson, Pacific Gas &
Electric))
No, it’s
not inconsistent, but you have to give us the guidelines.
((Carl Wood, Public Utilities
Commissioner))
Or you
could put yourself and the consumers at the mercy of these out of control
markets. The utilities chose the second
route. They could have chosen the
first.
((Jack))
We’re down
to thirty seconds.
((Lenny Goldberg, The Utility Reform
Network))
Commissioner
Wood is right, but let me just say that the transmission solution—just to make
sure that that’s on the table—is part of fixing the broken market. The transmission system is vulcanized; it
needs correction; it needs improvement, and the state can do it a lot cheaper
and a lot better than leaving it in its current situation.
((Jack))
With that
point, Lenny, you get the last word.
We’ve simply run out of time.
We would
like to thank you all for joining us, and we would like your feedback on this
issue.
Are you
satisfied with the way the state is handling the energy crisis?
Please send
us your comments at capitolweek.org.
((Melissa))
And for
more in-depth information on the energy crisis, check out this feature on our
site, “@ Issue: Energy.”
Next week,
a special edition…
The war on
drugs, treatment versus punishment, you decide…
Proposition
36 sends more drug offenders to treatment, but are there enough services to go
around?
Until then,
I’m Melissa Crowley. Thanks for joining
us.
((Jack))
And I’m
Jack Kavanagh. We’ll see you next time.