California
Capitol Review September 7, 2001
Energy
Summit
(Jack)
And thank
you for joining us. I’m Jack Kavanagh
with a little Laryngitis today.
(Melissa)
And I’m
Melissa Crowley, so I’ll be speaking loudly for both of us. We have a slightly new name, California
Capitol Review, but the same coverage we hope you’ve come to love.
(Jack)
We
love avoiding blackouts this summer, but the true price tag of the energy
crisis may stun you.
(Melissa)
Let’s
begin where we are right now. We have a
new state power agency with the authority to raise as much as five billion
dollars in bond money to build power plants and other related projected…
Republican
Secretary of State, Bill Jones, has asked the Federal Securities and Exchange
Commission to look into allegations of insider trading involving energy
consultants for the Davis administration.
(Jack)
And
whether or not Edison should be bailed out remains a very hot topic. An Assembly bill with several amendments
would allow the utility to sell bonds that would eventually be paid back by
consumers.
Joining
us to discuss more are Republican Assemblyman Anthony Pescetti of Rancho
Cordova; he’s also an energy committee member.
Steve
Maviglio, Press Secretary for Governor Gray Davis.
(Melissa)
Also with
us, Lenny Goldberg with The Utility Reform Network,
And Gary
Ackerman of the Western Power Trading Forum that represents over thirty in and
out of state power generators.
Thank you
all for being with us. Assemblyman,
we’ll start with you. Where do we stand
on the Edison bailout bill at this time, and is this, in fact, a good deal for
ratepayers like myself?
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
Well,
like all of us. It’s good to be here.
The Edison proposal, the memorandum of understanding, this week was
heard before the Energy Cost and Availability and Appropriations Committee
is scheduled to be on the floor of the Assembly some time either this week
or the early part of next week. Is it a good idea? I don’t think so. I don’t
think it gets to the core of the issue. The
proposal covers part of the back debt that Edison claims that they are in.
There’s still some discussion as to how much is owed.
There are several creditors that will not be paid, so there’s that
risk of involuntary bankruptcy, and until we can get some guarantees that
their credit worthiness will be restored and bankruptcy avoided, I don’t think
it’s a good deal for ratepayers or taxpayers in the state.
(Jack)
Steve,
the Governor wants this desperately, and he’s working very hard in the
legislature. Is he going to succeed?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
We think
so. We know it’s going to be a tight
vote; we always thought so. The
Governor is committed to making this happen.
He thinks it would be a bad idea for this utility to go bankrupt. I believe all our renewable energy suppliers
are looking for ways to get paid, and they’d go offline. It would leave 15,000 acres owned by us, and
that would go to the highest bidder. We
think that’s a bad idea.
(Jack)
Mr.
Pescetti just said that the true costs are still being debated at this
time. How can you propose a bailout if
nobody has an idea of what the true costs are?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well, we
know what the generators are owed, and we know what the renewable energy
providers are owed. The future is
future costs, and that’s what nobody knows.
(Melissa)
Can you
give us a ballpark figure, Steve, of what those future costs might involve?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well,
nobody knows. If I knew what the future
costs of energy would be, I’d be on a yacht in the Caribbean predicting it.
(Jack)
Well,
there are some published reports that have been putting it at $68,000.00 per
household in California over the next ten years.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Right.
(Jack)
That is a
lot of money.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well,
that number, which was provided by The Orange County Register, didn’t
look at the costs of the industrial users and the commercial users. It lumped all those numbers together and
divided by the number of households, which is the incorrect way to do it.
(Melissa)
Gary,
when we talk money we always pick on the power generators—
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
I can’t
imagine why.
(Melissa)
[laughs]
Is this Edison bailout addressing the power shortage that we faced and supply
issues, and what do generators think about the Edison deal?
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
It
doesn’t really address the power issues, and it only partially addresses the
payment issue, and that’s the biggest problem.
Even if the Assembly were to pass a bill, it leaves a billion dollars
out there for unsecured creditors, most of whom are my members, that are going
to have to resolve that, probably by forcing Edison into bankruptcy, so I
really don’t understand, nor do my members understand, why everyone is putting
their political capital on the table and saying, “We have to do this.” All these problems can be solved, but if
you’re not willing to solve the entire problem, you’re just making another
mistake and piling it on top of all the other mistakes that are being made
during this energy crisis.
(Jack)
Lenny,
you represent ratepayers—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
The small
ratepayers.
(Jack)
The small
ratepayers. As you watch this tableau
take place, what’s going on here? Is
the Governor hoping that the major generators will somehow gargle on the
billion dollars that they are owed?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well, on
that issue the Governor does have a legitimate point that this last billion
dollars is what has been unmercifully gouged out of consumers, and if the FERC,
the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, were doing it’s job and ordering the
refunds back to Edison and the state, who have bought that power, that money
goes straight through to the generators, the debt is cancelled, and the deal is
done in that sense, but we have other problems.
(Jack)
So, the
deal is these guys have to eat the losses and everyone goes home?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well,
these aren’t losses. These are
humongous profits that these guys made by gouging us in the wintertime when
there was tons of energy out there, but they shut down their plants so that
other plants could raise their prices—
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well,
Lenny has a very myopic view of prices.
He thinks that they go up by manipulation but that they go down by
divine inspiration—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
No,
that’s—
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Quite
frankly, they went down since June, rendering much of what the state has done
in the last three months obsolete, Lenny, and people have much lower power now
in terms of cost. It’s not true that
manipulation is what caused those prices to go up. We have cost factors which did that, and that’s what the FERC is
going to look at.
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Actually,
I’m going to have do defend the Governor.
I did just in the last one. One
of the reasons that the prices went down is that everybody said, “Don’t be out
there in the spot market,” so they bought, and the prices went down, and the
second thing is that with all the pressure that finally came, FERC came along
and said, “You know, we’re late; we’re way behind the curb, but we have to put
some price caps on there,” and that’s why the prices are down.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well, and
Californians have done a magnificent job of conserving energy.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Right.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
And so
that was very critical to this.
(Melissa)
Let’s
talk about long-term contracts because that was seen as a good thing to help
stabilize the market, and recently we heard reports about an energy glut. Are we leveraging our future with some of
these long-term contracts to avoid the immediate financial hit? Are we talking 20 years when we’ll still be
paying these higher rates?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well, it
is really unfortunate that the state was forced into the position of having to
buy long-term contracts at a time when the market was the most screwed-up, but
you have to say, “Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.” If we hadn’t bought those contracts, we
would still be facing a spot market that would potentially be extremely
volatile in the summer, so the question is: “Did we buy too much? Are some of
those contract prices too high?”
Absolutely. We think so, but
it’s very easy to second guess, and it’s a lot harder to be in that position
when we’ve got the state’s energy future on the line. Now, for ratepayers, yes; we will be paying higher prices than we
would, but what we’re looking forward to is a relatively high priced, but
stable future, and I think the attitude was that we never want to get caught
again in this crazy market. San Diego
was the canary in the mineshaft, and those folks said, “We never want to be
exposed to this market again.”
(Melissa)
Assemblyman
Pescetti, did you get enough details about the long-term contracts, and are you
comfortable enough about the contracts that have been negotiated?
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
No, we
didn’t get enough details, but Lenny raises a good point. You know, we were at a time when we had
three utilities that were strapped.
Specifically, PG&E ultimately went into bankruptcy and Edison has
been threatening to go into bankruptcy.
There was a shortage of available supply. I think we had no other choice but to enter into some long-term
contracts. It guaranteed some
liability. It guaranteed some relief as
far as price. You know, people are
saying, “Prices are cheaper today.” We
bought up most of the spot market leads anyway, so of course the price was
going to go down, but I think it was something that we had to do. Yeah, we’re going to pay some higher
prices. It would be nice to have more
information, and I think as we proceed through this whole energy issue that
this information will become available, but it was something that we needed to
do.
(Jack)
The
Legislature will adjourn in, literally, days.
The 15th, I think, of September—
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
The 14th.
(Jack)
The 14th
is the last day. The issue that
originally started this problem goes back several Legislatures and several
sessions. It was when the utilities
were required to buy power and sell it cheap because they were forced to sell
at low rates to ratepayers, and that issue was never addressed, and it looks
like this Legislature is going to adjourn again without addressing it, and
isn’t that the root of the whole problem?
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
That’s
part of it. Under the deregulation, it
froze the retail rates, but at some point the wholesale rates were allowed to
go up or change—
(Jack)
Well, why
doesn’t the Legislature walk away from this?
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
Well, I
think when you look at the whole energy issue, you’ve got to take it in
segments. First thing is, we’ve got to
make sure that we keep the lights on in the state of California; that was the
task that we all had to undertake. The
second part was, “How do we pay for that?”
The third is, “What do we do with the utilities that are in
existence?” The last is, “How do we
guarantee more supply or conserve?” I
think we’ve dealt with those issues.
(Jack)
Yes, but
is this problem going to be with us for ever and ever and ever until we finally
come to grips with that 12 billion dollars?
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
You know,
the fact that we have entered into some long-term contracts had been
addressed. I think there’s still some
question about what that debt is. That
goes back to my comment about Edison earlier.
How much was it that the utilities had to pay? You know, we know that there was some movement of assets from
subsidiaries up to parent companies. We
know that there were dividends paid.
You know, Edison, as recently as last month, went out and borrowed a
billion dollars, so there are the issues that still have to be addressed.
(Melissa)
Is this
something that—excuse me Gary—that the state power authority will address,
Steve?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well, the
power authority is going to have a role in filling in the gaps where the
private sector leaves off. We see a
massive investment in California. The
Governor has put more power online in the last year than has been put online in
the previous decade, but if the private sector fails to continue this trend,
that’s where the power authority will step in and build those plants.
(Melissa)
Does the
power authority scare you, Gary?
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
No, it
doesn’t scare us. It just makes us
wonder what they’re doing. Market
prices have rendered them virtually obsolete and before they even got started. The marketplace extends beyond the borders
of California, so what California does really doesn’t affect the 13 Western
states. The power prices that we see
are really a result of competition that takes place across the whole region,
and that’s why I wanted to say earlier what California does with long-term
contracts has nothing to do with the spot prices we see across the region.
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
He’s got
it right. That’s where we’ve
failed. The competition that’s taking
place has put us into this power crisis, and the reason we need the power
authority, the reason the Governor has signed these long-term contracts is
precisely because this noncompetitive market has thrown us into a crisis. We’ve got to go back to a much more
controlled, much more regulated market.
One of the key roles of the Power Authority, we think should be—and I
think the Governor’s office agrees with us on this—is breaking the transmission
constraints that prevent the market from working well enough as it is. Path 15, we can put another 500 KV line out
to Palo Verde, where there’s another 10,000 megawatts coming on—
(Jack)
The Power
Authority?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well, the
Power Authority has limited authority as far as transmission, and this is our
biggest criticism as far as where the Legislature has failed. We should be buying Edison’s transmission
lines; we should be buying PG&E’s; we should be taking over the
transmission, and the Power Authority needs more authority to break those
constraints by investing in transmission because nobody else is there to do
that.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Lenny,
what you’re proposing just wastes California taxpayers’ money to achieve a goal
which they couldn’t possibly achieve.
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Actually—
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
They
cannot make the market in the West.
They cannot settle the market in the West. They’re only one player in the West.
(Jack)
As an
angry and frustrated voter, ratepayer, and taxpayer, let me throw out the issue
of direct access out on the table.
Direct access is basically large consumers of electricity, big retailers
and big companies, to go into the market and buy at today’s low rates. However, when the bill comes due to pay back
the state of California for the money that it has been buying on our behalf,
they won’t be part of that ratepayer.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
We
strongly support direct access by the way, but we also agree that some portion
of the debt that has been incurred cannot be forgiven just instantaneously
because the customer decides to go to direct access. We feel that there is an appropriate amount without chasing
businesses out of California and wrecking the economy, so we’d like to see
consumers maintain their choice, but we also recognize that you just can’t let
them go without paying some of the debt.
(Jack)
What’s
the Governor’s position on direct access?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
He
supports a middle ground position. We
were very concerned about a lot of big users coming off the grid because that
leaves the state with a lot of power that we’ve already bought—
(Jack)
And fewer
and fewer people to pay.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Exactly.
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
And then
the small ratepayers are paying the bill.
(Assemblyman
Anthony Pescetti, [R] Rancho Cordova)
You know,
here’s the problem with direct access, and, remember, I served six years on the
Sacramento Municipal Utility District.
You allow direct access, that means the state has to buy less power,
that means the ratepayers have less at risk.
What’s happened is we don’t have a lot of information on these
contracts. We don’t information on
estimated and average price, how long, and how much power. Part of the problem is we should have
encouraged more of the large users to go out and do direct access. It takes the risk away from the ratepayers,
and it takes the risk away from the state of California. We didn’t allow that to happen.
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well, in
fact, we suggested in January that small ratepayers can stay in the regulated
system, and the big ratepayers could go into the market, and they said, “No,
don’t throw us into that market!” So,
the state comes in and says, “Well, we’ve got to buy for everybody, big and
small.” Now that the market has been
stabilized, these guys want to get out and leave us with the costs, and we’re
saying, “No way” on that, and that’s one of the reasons why the bill to bail
out Edison has these direct access provisions that are totally unacceptable to
small ratepayers.
(Jack)
Again, as
a ratepayer, voter, and taxpayer, why does it seem when I look at this that we,
the taxpayers, are at the very bottom of the food chain?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well,
that’s because the big lobbyists of all sorts are very well represented, and
some of us struggle for the small ratepayers, and we’ve had some success this
year, but, you know, the balance here is—
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Lenny,
it’s not the case at all. No, but what
happens is when government agencies make mistake after mistake after mistake,
taxpayers end up paying the bill. When
private companies make mistakes—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Ratepayers
pay the bill.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
When
private companies make mistakes, who pays the bill? Their investors. That’s
why we’re always in favor, if there is a risk proposition to be made, let the
private sector look at it. Don’t foist it
onto the taxpayers and consumers.
(Melissa)
Let’s
talk government agencies. We’re hearing
that over and over. It wasn’t that long
ago when we were talking government agencies, we were doing a lot of finger
pointing at FERC—what the federal government’s role is, how that would
help. Lately, we haven’t heard a lot
about FERC, and my concern is when we talk about the State power agency,
they’re limited in the scope of what they can do, so isn’t the elephant in the
room that they’re very limited, and what happened to the federal government
being to blame?
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well, I
think the federal government is still out there doing what is appropriate. They’re looking at the charges, they’re
considering what the case might be for refunds, and—
(Melissa)
Limited
price caps.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well,
they have limited price caps. I think
they’re going to have to [muffled by other speakers].
(Jack)
There’s
also an Edison lawsuit hanging out there.
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well,
there are many lawsuits.
(Jack)
Well,
there’s a lawsuit by Southern California Edison that basically says, “Hey,
look, you forced us to buy power at this price and sell it at this price. Make us whole legally.” Why can’t Edison just go into court and
execute that?
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well, I
think they can get a far better outcome possibly in some federal cases, but you
don’t know that with any certainty. My
confusion—I think a lot of the people I represent would also express this—is
why are they looking for a Legislative fix?
It seems an unfair burden to put on our state Legislature to fix all
these problems when, in fact, it might be more litigious and—
(Jack)
What
about that Edison lawsuit, Steve?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well,
that’s one of the beauties of the Edison MOU—
(Jack)
MOU
meaning Memorandum of Understanding.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
That’s
right. The bill that’s before the Legislature right now, if that goes forward,
that would go away.
(Melissa)
Steve—
(Jack)
Do we
want that to go away?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well, he
means the [unintelligible] rate docking case, which would lay it all on
ratepayers, but Edison is also pursuing a suit against the generators at the
FERC for restitution, and that one doesn’t go away.
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Right,
right.
(Melissa)
Steve,
like it or not, the Governor has been tagged “The Energy Governor,” and as he’s
fighting for reelection, is he comfortable with where he stands and what he’s
done for the state?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well, as
he said the other day, “You don’t talk about a no-hitter in the middle of a
game.” We’re not out of the woods
yet. We had most of our blackouts last
year in the fall and winter, so we still have a long way to go. We have to keep conserving; we have to keep
building plants.
(Melissa)
The worst
is over?
(Steve
Maviglio, Governor’s Press Secretary)
Well,
it’s hard to say. The Governor was
tagged. Everybody was saying that he
was doing everything wrong. He was too
slow. Now, there’s an article in the LA
Times last week saying that he’s doing too much, so somehow I think he’s
been able to strike the right balance.
Despite all the predictions, we’ve gone through the summer despite all
the predictions by industry and consumers, and we haven’t had them.
(Jack)
No more
rate increases coming?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Uh,
hopefully, the curve as you look out into the future is a downward curve, and
part of—
(Jack)
You mean
the rates have peaked?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Well,
no. We can’t guarantee that because we
don’t know what gas prices are going to be, but one of the great things we did
this year is to make sure that utility rate retained generation could not be
sold off into the market, so we have a substantial chunk of regulated power
that’s going to help keep those average costs down. We have a substantial number of long-term contracts, and not all
of them are flexible based on gas prices, so we know pretty much what the
prices are going to be—
(Jack)
Lenny,
just so I under—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
But
they’re high. They’re still high.
(Jack)
Just so I
understand—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
As small
ratepayers, we’ve been able to make sure that, if you don’t use a lot, your
rates are not going to go up, and that’s another thing that the Legislature did
which was very forward-thinking.
(Jack)
Just to
clarify, if we have supply and our rates have peaked—
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
And we
conserve.
(Jack)
—is the crisis over?
(Lenny
Goldberg, The Utility Reform Network)
Uh, I would
agree with Steve. We’re not out of the
woods yet. We’ve got to get much better
control over this market. There’s no
question that when FERC lifts the price caps and the gougers start playing
games again, we could be in trouble.
(Melissa)
Gary, is
the worst over?
(Gary
Ackerman, Western Power Trading Forum)
Well, I
believe the worst is over in terms of price, certainly in the price we’re
seeing on the wholesale market. We’re
seeing prices that are just one-tenth of what we were seeing just a few months
ago. It’s the mopping up process that’s
going to take place. It’s long; it’s
arduous. That’s going to take place,
and I also think that we’re going to have to change the whole paradigm in
Washington D.C. so that we’re looking at a regional solution. No more state solutions. California has proved that they don’t work.
(Jack)
All
right. On that point, we’ll have to
stop.
Thank you
all for joining us, and we would like to know how you think state lawmakers are
doing. Are they doing a good job or a
bad job handling the energy crisis?
Sent us your comments and e-mail to “capitolreview.org”.
End
Energy Discussion
(Melissa)
The
debate over our state’s energy woes extended to our nation’s Capitol. We sat down with US Senator Barbara Boxer
recently to find out the latest from Washington.
Begin
Senator Boxer Interview
(Melissa)
We’re
joined now by Senator Barbara Boxer.
Thank you for making time for us, and Senator, energy was on the minds
of everybody this summer. What was the
climate like and perception in Washington DC these days?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
Well,
I think everyone in Washington expected the lights to go out in California
this summer, and they’re kind of amazed, and I tried to tell them that the
people of California are amazing. I
go back to the days of the drought that we had in the north in the 70’s and
how people responded, and I guess what I am trying to allow my colleagues
to understand that the greatest thing we can do is build an energy policy
around energy efficiency. I don’t wish this on anyone. This was awful. The deregulation was full of mistakes, but, as usual, the people
have risen to the occasion, but if I can do my job, which is to put the pressure
on FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to refund the monies that
are due to people because of absolute price gouging, we’ll come out of this
okay.
(Melissa)
Was
California included or were they shut out?
Were consumers shut out from the Chaney task force on energy?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
The Chaney
taskforce on energy apparently was so secretive that even after tremendous
pressure from the Congress—remember the House is controlled by the
Republicans—even they were pushing to find out who was left out and who was
left in. So far, we really don’t
know. We do know that the
environmentalists were begging for some time, and they were there for, like, 30
seconds, and Dick Chaney barely showed up, so we in the California delegation
were asking for a meeting. We finally
got a meeting. It was brief. We all told Dick Chaney that the generators
were coming in, that they were gouging.
How can you have an increase in profits of 1000%? We were relying on him to help us with refunds,
and he was pretty noncommittal about it.
(Melissa)
And you
say, quote, here back in 2001, “The President’s energy plan does nothing to
ease California’s energy plight.” What
do you suggest would?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
It does
nothing to ease our plight because, first of all, the federal government has to
provide these refunds. This was one of
the largest transfers of wealth in human history. Money going from consumers to these generating companies, who
were mostly out-of-state, and who essentially pulling power offline in order to
create an artificial crisis between supply and demand.
(Melissa)
On a
state perspective, how would you rate Governor Davis’ performance?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
He really
did the best, I think, that anybody could do, and, you know, he didn’t create
the crisis. He was one of the few
people who wasn’t involved in it, but he inherited it, and he stepped up to the
plate. Now—
(Melissa)
Should he
have acted more quickly do you think?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
Maybe,
but, you know, this was not an easy thing, and now some people are saying that
we paid too much on the long-term contracts, but don’t forget, it’s easy to be
the morning after quarterback, but the bottom-line is what he did by entering
into these long-term contracts and resolving about a quarter of our needs—that
meant there was less pressure on the spot market, on the short-term market, and
that drove prices down. I would say, I
am not going to criticize Gray Davis on this.
He walked into this nightmare that any politician would recoil from, so
maybe it took him a little while to realize that this was on his shoulders,
but, overall, I think he did the best job that anyone could do. Look, the proof is in the pudding. We haven’t suffered the rolling blackouts
this summer, and I think what we have seen is his desire to put more power online
and not give environmental protection, so I feel he stepped up to the
plate. Now, his political star took a
terrible hit, but I think people will say, “Before we throw stones, let’s think
about what we would have done in inheriting such a situation.”
(Melissa)
When we
talk about political stars that have taken a hit, of course, we have to talk
about Gary Condit.
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
Yeah.
(Melissa)
Did he
come to you? Did he ever apologize for
what happened?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
No. No, he never came to me at all, and I
remember seeing him on the airplane at one point when this had just broken, and
I said, “Gary, just know we don’t have a private life. We don’t,” and he said something sort of
resisting that point, but it’s awful.
It’s a mess.
(Melissa)
Has that
dominated the political landscape in Washington when there have been other
priorities on the table that have sort of clouded some other issues that are
going on in Washington right now?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
It’s
dominated the press. It hasn’t
dominated any of the work that me or my colleagues have done. We’re doing our jobs. You know, we’ve got huge issues before
us. You mentioned the energy crisis;
we’ve got to get FERC to respond to California’s problems. We’ve got the fight over offshore
drilling. We’ve got to look at
long-term energy needs. We’ve got to do
that. I’m looking at many issues such
as a women’s right to choose, the gag order that George Bush put into
place. I now head a subcommittee, now
that we hold the majority, and we were able to repeal the gag rule in the
committee—
(Melissa)
Let’s
talk social security because as we tape this interview, that’s a big
issue. It was a big victory for the
Bush administration that people got tax cuts, and we’re starting to get those
in the mail. Are we looking at having
to tap into the Social Security surplus?
(Senator
Barbara Boxer)
Well,
first, let’s clear something up. The
rebates are a tiny proportion of the overall tax cut. They’re tiny, and the Democrats are the ones that push
rebates. I supported the rebates, but
not the whole package, which, by the way, will give people who earn 1.2 million
a year the lion’s share of the tax cut.
My proposal is freeze that part of the tax cut, just to those
people. Let the rest go ahead; let’s
not revisit it. I’ve made this proposal
recently this week. We don’t have money
for education. Now, they say we’re
going to dip into the trust fund, which I won’t do.
End
Senator Boxer Interview
(Melissa)
Hear more
about what Senator Boxer plans to do and has to say, including her insight into
the economy and stem cell research.
It’s all
later this month on California Capitol Review.
(Jack)
Melissa,
thanks for being patient with my Laryngitis.
That is
all the time we have for this week.
Next week, legislative battles and the debate surrounding toxic mold.
(Melissa)
Until
then, thanks for joining us. Goodnight.