San Francisco Chronicle editorial: Energy crisis blame game

[Jack Rabbit]

From the San Francisco Chronicle
Dated Sunday Aughet 3

Energy crisis blame game
Editorial

ONE OF the main charges in the recall rap sheet against Gov. Gray Davis is that he was responsible for the California energy crisis and the high rates consumers are now paying. Even if he wasn't the architect of the deregulation debacle, the folk wisdom goes, at the least he "mishandled," "mismanaged" or "failed to address" the energy crisis quickly enough.
Like the regulation plan itself, these arguments are deeply flawed. Blaming Davis for the energy crisis is nothing more than a politically convenient way to explain away one of the most complex -- and enduring -- problems facing the state.
In hindsight, it would have been great if Davis had done more earlier on to avert the crisis. But it is not clear what exactly he could have done. For months, he pressed the federal government to place caps on wholesale prices, but was was repeatedly rebuffed. (The Federal Energy Regulatory Committee belatedly imposed price caps -- of $92.37 per megawatt hour -- in June 2001, as the crisis subsided). For months, he unsuccessfully asked FERC to look into potentially manipulative schemes. For months, he was ridiculed by the White House and other Republicans for trying shifting the blame to greedy energy traders.

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[KoKo]

1. Enron isn't being explored by Press in Glee over Davis Recall!

Glad to see this article. While the whore press carries on about California and David Brooks on PBS calls Californian's "nut cases" and says they "don't even know how to use e-mail" (don't even ask how he could have made such outrageous comments in a CA discussion last week, because he's dispicable) but never a mention of what Enron did to California and the swindle of the people in that state. If they can get Davis out they figure the blame will to on his head and Ken Lay and Enron will be buried deeper in the earth as another action of the BFEE to destroy those "who will tell the truth."

[w4rma]

2. We need more information like this to get out about the problems is CA

The Enron robber barons stole from every single person in California and the media is ignoring this when talking about the CA budget crisis. :mad:

They also neglect to mention that the Republican minority in the state legislature has been obstructing the budget until the CA credit rating had been demoted.

[sam sarrha]

3. an obvious conspiracy involving price fixing was exposed here in El Paso

toward the end of the CRISIS, the pipeline is parceled out along the way to California and in each corporate fiefdom, a robber Barron gets his cut,.. the corporation here raised the cost of letting the natural gas flow through its little part of the pipe was raised 2,800% right after the deregulation that was to bring lower prices... an investigation was started , but went the way of the Shrubs education, aids and veterans funding. shortly after that the Crisis went away. and why do they schedule regular maintenance in numerous generation plants during a peak demand season??? then a bottle neck in the transmission lines evolved, and hasn't been seen since..VERY STRANGE indeed