Repugs Break All Laws!
AbelM...@webtv.net
violation of an already existing law called the Raker Act of 1913.
Meanwhile PG&E itself is violating all sorts of laws itself, a good
Attorney General could come up with some obvious violations of already
existing anti-monopoly laws, anti-extortion laws, or anti-fraud laws of
some kind. It figures that these power companies would blackmail and
cheat Californians so blatantly as they are doing right now.
An important note to make, unlike the rest of California, Sacramento and
Los Angeles have no shortage of energy whatsoever, and they have both
successfully managed to increase energy capacity to keep up with
increased energy demands, without increasing pollution, without
increasing prices, and without increasing their electric bills either.
The reason is, because Sacramento and Los Angeles did not agree to go
along with the evil Republican plans to deregulate their power
industries, the way the rest of California did.
According to ABC news today, the single biggest contributors to George
dWi Bush's campaign to steal the presidency are,
#1: The health insurance companies, and the health care industries
&
#2: The oil and energy companies.
Watch for Americans to be gouged by the health insurance and the health
care industries next, as if we are not already. The facist dictator
will have to pay them back by looking the other way, when they do their
dirty deeds. Just like our soon to be Chief Prosecutor, John AshKKKroft,
is going to look the other way, as the biggest contributors to his
dictator boss continue to extort the lifeblood out of California's
citizency.
Abel Malcolm,
Posting from somewhere inside the great United dictatorship of AmeriKKKa
_____________
January 19, 2001
San Francisco Is Considering Its Own Utility
By EVELYN NIEVES
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 — For decades, a small group of residents here
has tried to make the case that San Francisco should run its own
electric and gas company. But the very words "municipal utility
district" inspired a wide public yawn.
What a difference an energy crisis makes. With rolling blackouts and
soaring electrical bills and little relief in sight, the idea of
establishing a public utility for the city is finally, and quickly,
gaining steam.
The idea is hardly radical. Dozens of California cities have public
utilities, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and their power systems
have run well and at lower cost to customers than private companies. But
now, for the first time, resistance to the idea of public power in San
Francisco is being re-evaluated.
Last week, members of the city's Board of Supervisors promised to put
the idea on the front burner. Moreover, residents have begun writing
letters to newspapers and attending forums questioning why this
sophisticated city — neighbor to electricity-hungry Silicon Valley and
owner of its own hydroelectric dam — cannot run its own power grid.
As a result, even those who have rejected the idea of a municipal
utility district before, like Mayor Willie Brown, are saying it is now
something to consider.
Pacific Gas and Electric has estimated it would cost $1.2 billion to
build the infrastructure and convert the city to public power.
Proponents of a municipal utility say it would cost more like $600
million.
The issue has a long history. As the San Francisco Bay Guardian
newspaper has noted in a series of articles, the city is violating a
1913 federal law called the Raker Act requiring it to create a low-cost
public power system. "This is the biggest scandal in history involving
an American city," said Bruce Brugmann, co-publisher of The Guardian.
The mandate grew from the city's efforts, 90 years ago, to build a dam
and reservoir on the Tuolumne River in Yosemite National Park to help
meet its water needs. Congress approved the proposal and a dam was built
for the first, and last, time in a national park: the O'Shaughnessy Dam
at the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.
To appease conservationists, Congress told the city that the dam would
have to generate inexpensive public electricity and that it could not be
used for private profit.
Pacific Gas and Electric was granted the authority to run the city's
power supply temporarily while San Francisco devised its own municipal
utility. Instead, Pacific Gas became the franchise holder for the city's
power. The company pays San Francisco $2 million a year for the right to
use the city's streets to deliver electricity.
Proponents of a municipal utility estimate that San Francisco would earn
$200 million a year from running its own power system.
Angela Alioto, a former president of the Board of Supervisors, pushed in
the mid-1990's to examine why the city had not complied with the Raker
Act. She also pushed for a public power feasibility study and to raise
Pacific Gas and Electric's franchise fee to $8 million a year. But the
board voted down the study, and the city attorney said that the original
agreement with the utility held the fee at $2 million in perpetuity.
Voters, Ms. Alioto said, simply did not care about the issue. "It's not
the least bit sexy," said Ms. Alioto, now a lawyer in private practice.
Even her father, Joseph Alioto, San Francisco's mayor from 1968 to 1976,
was not concerned with municipalizing power. "It was just easier to let
PG&E do it," she said, adding that political contributions and lobbying
by the utilities also helped to keep the issue down.
That has changed. Last week, a meeting of the Coalition to Lower Utility
Bills, held in Ms. Alioto's office, was swamped by 70 people eager to
join the fight, she said.
And an initiative to create a public power system in the city — the
latest of several failed efforts in the last 20 years — has been
placed on the ballot for November.
"We're going to win this time," Ms. Alioto said. "We're going to have a
five-member elected board that could start municipalizing power district
by district. We'll be up and running in two or three years."
___________
City Sues Electrical Suppliers
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18 (Agence France-Presse) — The city of San
Francisco filed a lawsuit today against 13 suppliers of wholesale
electricity, charging that the companies illegally conspired to raise
the prices they charged to the state's public utilities.
The city seeks a court order halting the companies' alleged behavior and
directing them to return "illegal profits" estimated at $1 billion to
consumers. The city wants the companies to reimburse California's
utilities for having to pay inflated prices.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Educate yourself & go to these sites:
http://www.VoterMarch.org &
http://www.auaa.org/timeline/index.html &
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3750/headlines.htm &
http://www.bushneverwonflorida.com & http://www.BUSHorCHIMP.com &
http://www.gorewon2000.net &
http://attach3.egroups.com/attach/2442540/419/gs-244=25=2442540/10-1-4-14/image=jpeg/Inbox.jpg
David Melbourne
<AbelM...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:22301-3A...@storefull-226.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
&
_____________
January 19, 2001
By EVELYN NIEVES
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 - For decades, a small group of residents here
has tried to make the case that San Francisco should run its own
electric and gas company. But the very words "municipal utility
district" inspired a wide public yawn.
What a difference an energy crisis makes. With rolling blackouts and
soaring electrical bills and little relief in sight, the idea of
establishing a public utility for the city is finally, and quickly,
gaining steam.
The idea is hardly radical. Dozens of California cities have public
utilities, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and their power systems
have run well and at lower cost to customers than private companies. But
now, for the first time, resistance to the idea of public power in San
Francisco is being re-evaluated.
Last week, members of the city's Board of Supervisors promised to put
the idea on the front burner. Moreover, residents have begun writing
letters to newspapers and attending forums questioning why this
sophisticated city - neighbor to electricity-hungry Silicon Valley and
owner of its own hydroelectric dam - cannot run its own power grid.
And an initiative to create a public power system in the city - the
latest of several failed efforts in the last 20 years - has been
placed on the ballot for November.
"We're going to win this time," Ms. Alioto said. "We're going to have a
five-member elected board that could start municipalizing power district
by district. We'll be up and running in two or three years."
___________
City Sues Electrical Suppliers
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18 (Agence France-Presse) - The city of San
Bill Mech
reflecting adversely on yourself.
--
Bill Mech
wm...@att.net
For info on politics, taxes, education etc., go to
http://home.att.net/~wmech
<AbelM...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:22301-3A...@storefull-226.iap.bryant.webtv.net...
&
_____________
January 19, 2001
By EVELYN NIEVES
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 17 - For decades, a small group of residents here
has tried to make the case that San Francisco should run its own
electric and gas company. But the very words "municipal utility
district" inspired a wide public yawn.
What a difference an energy crisis makes. With rolling blackouts and
soaring electrical bills and little relief in sight, the idea of
establishing a public utility for the city is finally, and quickly,
gaining steam.
The idea is hardly radical. Dozens of California cities have public
utilities, including Los Angeles and Sacramento, and their power systems
have run well and at lower cost to customers than private companies. But
now, for the first time, resistance to the idea of public power in San
Francisco is being re-evaluated.
Last week, members of the city's Board of Supervisors promised to put
the idea on the front burner. Moreover, residents have begun writing
letters to newspapers and attending forums questioning why this
sophisticated city - neighbor to electricity-hungry Silicon Valley and
owner of its own hydroelectric dam - cannot run its own power grid.
And an initiative to create a public power system in the city - the
latest of several failed efforts in the last 20 years - has been
placed on the ballot for November.
"We're going to win this time," Ms. Alioto said. "We're going to have a
five-member elected board that could start municipalizing power district
by district. We'll be up and running in two or three years."
___________
City Sues Electrical Suppliers
SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18 (Agence France-Presse) - The city of San
AbelM...@webtv.net
I've pasted it. Keep in mind, PG&E is a multi billion dollar company
whose profits have doubled, at exactly the same time frame that our
electricity bills have doubled also. In the last 3 months alone, PG&E
has made $225 million in profits, yet they have hidden those millions in
a separate entity called a "holding company", so that they can pull this
fraud of pretending to be going bankrupt.
Is our new Atty. General, John AshKKKroft, going to investigate this
extortion scam? What do YOU think?
Welcome to the New World Order
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/01/22/MN41098.DTL
How PG&E Missteps Preceded Crisis
Too many plants sold, demand miscalculated
Susan Sward, David Lazarus, Chronicle Staff Writers Monday, January
22, 2001
Not long after California's deregulation law took effect, Pacific Gas
and Electric Co. officials met with the state's congressional
delegation, worried that Congress might draft legislation that would
spoil everything.
Since the law was passed in 1996, wholesale energy prices remained
relatively stable, and the state's utilities were prospering.
George Miller, the Democratic congressman from Martinez, recalled how
the utility representatives were happy with the state's deregulation of
the electrical industry. "They said, 'We are willing to take the risk' "
if the wholesale prices they were paying for electricity shot up, Miller
said.
"Now the utilities have tried to make it that they're the victims when
they designed the system," Miller said.
The company wants its 4.5 million customers to pay almost $7 billion in
debts it has incurred since wholesale electricity prices skyrocketed
last summer.
In November, PG&E Chairman Robert Glynn Jr. said: "We have a legal and
moral right to be reimbursed. I think consumers understand the costs
incurred to serve them need to be paid."
PG&E Co. spokesman John Nelson elaborated on Friday, saying the utility
never stated it would accept the risk if wholesale electricity prices
skyrocketed, exceeding what the company was taking in from ratepayers.
He said the utility only accepted the risk that it might not make enough
money under deregulation to repay the debts it was already carrying.
The company's odyssey from onetime champion of deregulation to self-
proclaimed victim of deregulation is a story of critical missteps and
greed, including selling too many of its generator plants and
underestimating its customers' rising electricity demands.
"PG&E was opposed to restructuring initially and once they realized it
would happen, they got on board and tried to craft something as
beneficial as possible for their shareholders," said Severin Borenstein,
director of the University of California Energy Institute. "In the
process, they clearly made some miscalculations, including the risk that
the price of power could go way up and leave them exposed."
For its part, PG&E says it was hardly alone in supporting deregulation.
"To argue the utilities were the only ones endorsing deregulation is a
complete revision of history," Nelson says. "PG&E sat at the table with
every other stakeholder -- including consumer groups, big users, the
Public Utilities Commission, legislators and Gov. (Pete) Wilson's office
-- and designed California's deregulation plan."
The fiasco threatens to send the utility into bankruptcy, cost consumers
billions of dollars and severely damage the state's economy.
And, like most debacles, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Since its founding in 1905 in Central California, PG&E Corp. mushroomed
through the decades to become an investor-owned, publicly traded
corporation with revenues of almost $21 billion and 151,000
shareholders. Over the years PG&E enjoyed a reputation as a safe stock
purchase for investors seeking a steady, reliable return. It had
nurtured that reputation with millions of dollars in contributions to
community groups. The utility employed thousands of workers, and it
encouraged those employees to take an active role in their communities.
Then came deregulation. Initially, it was a scheme embraced by the big
users -- such as cement and steel companies -- which were hungry to be
permitted to buy electricity at what they thought would be lower rates.
PG&E at first opposed state deregulation of the electrical industry, but
the company became a convert to the cause when it was clear that some
form of deregulation was going forward. In Sacramento, PG&E spent
millions of dollars in contributions and lobbyists' salaries to advance
its position.
The utility signed on to the campaign because it thought it would make
more money and would pay off its debts. It also saw deregulation as a
way to buy power from independent producers and not be weighed down by
high costs of electricity in California.
One reason for those costs -- about double the national average -- was
the billions of dollars California utilities had paid out in their foray
into nuclear power. Construction of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power
plant, estimated at $620 million in 1968, ended up costing $5.8 billion.
In the 1970s, PG&E learned of the Hosgri earthquake fault lying three
miles off the San Luis Obispo County coast -- requiring millions of
dollars in seismic alterations for the plant. Then, in 1981, a PG&E
engineer discovered design drawings of the components in the plant's two
reactors were reversed -- setting off a rash of studies and changes.
"The PUC's own consumer unit argued that Diablo Canyon essentially had
been built three times due, in part, to construction errors," said Don
Vial, a former president of the PUC appointed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown.
Diablo Canyon was not PG&E's only problematic nuclear plant. The nuclear
plant at Humboldt Bay closed in 1976 after 13 years of operation when an
earthquake fault was discovered beneath it. Another venture marred with
controversy was the Helms Creek Pumped Storage Powerhouse near Fresno
which ran at least $300 million over budget. In 1999, PG&E was in the
headlines again, agreeing to pay a $29 million fine for inadequate tree
trimming.
Despite all this, PG&E has enjoyed a generally good reputation on Wall
Street.
"PG&E Co. has been well-run relative to other utilities around the
country, " said Wen Wen Chen, a research associate for Credit Suisse
First Boston. "Management has run the utility prudently in a tough
regulatory atmosphere. A lot of other utilities have produced very
little growth whereas PG&E has been successful in growing its
unregulated businesses."
But consumer advocates find much about the utility to criticize.
"There has always been this undercurrent of the gang that couldn't shoot
straight," said Mike Florio, an attorney for The Utility Reform Network
in San Francisco. "There has been this almost endless stream of fiascoes
-- Humboldt, Diablo, Helms, the tree-trimming controversies.
"PG&E tries, but it's almost as if they are snake-bit," he said. "They
have a more liberal outlook than most utilities and try to be the good
guys, but they can't quite pull it off."
1997, Gordon Smith, PG&E's chief executive, spoke of deregulation and
said it looked as if the utility would do well. He added a cautionary
note, however:
"If this were a guarantee, I'd sleep better at night. We take the risk
if our costs go up."
As part of deregulation, the PUC pressed the state's utilities to sell
off at least half of their generating plants. In response, PG&E sold off
almost all its fossil fuel plants and all of its geothermal facilities.
PG&E's Nelson said under deregulation the utility "was strongly
encouraged to sell off all its fossil fuel plants because the state
wanted to encourage competition at the generation level."
Under deregulation, PG&E was to use the profits from these sales to help
pay off its debts from plant construction and costly long-term
contracts. Deregulation also called for a rate freeze that allowed the
utility to take in more from ratepayers than it was paying for the
energy it was buying, helping the company to pay off its debts.
"Deregulation was designed to have PG&E pay off its mortgages -- half
owed to its shareholders and half to banks, so it is a complete
falsehood to say the company has been making billions in profits,"
Nelson said. "It would be illegal to have investors loan us the money to
build the plants and then not repay them."
When deregulation failed to attract the kind of competition that had
been expected and energy costs soared, the utility found itself
vulnerable to the high prices charged by the nation's independent power
producers.
"Both PG&E and Southern California Edison made a decision to sell their
fossil fuel generating plants in California, whereas the PUC only asked
them to sell half their plants," said Barbara Barkovich, a former PUC
policy planning director who is now a consultant to big energy users.
"When electricity prices went up, it left them more exposed."
State Sen. Debra Bowen, chairwoman of the Senate Energy, Utilities and
Communications Committee, has said if there were one action that could
be undone in this energy mess, it would be PUC's requirement that the
utilities "divest most of their generation assets with no requirement
for long-term contracts for the supply generated by those assets."
Once PG&E sold off its power plants, critics say, the nation's
independent generators stepped in and gouged the utility.
SMART, BUT NOT CREATIVE
"There are a lot of smart people at PG&E, but they aren't exactly
creative, " said Harry Snyder, a lawyer for Consumers Union in San
Francisco. "So Duke Power, Enron and the other independents came in and
ate PG&E's lunch.
"Those companies paid three times book value for those PG&E generating
plants and PG&E thought they were taking these guys," he said. "In fact,
those independents knew the value of those generating plants, and PG&E
sold off way too many of them, so they couldn't govern their own
destiny."
Meanwhile, the anticipated competition on the deregulated energy market
never materialized. "Competition became the driving watch word and no
one figured out where the competition would come from," said William
Bagley, a PUC commissioner during the Deukmejian administration.
PG&E argues that one reason that competition didn't arise in California
was a 1998 anti-deregulation initiative. The initiative was defeated,
but it had the effect of discouraging other power companies from
entering the state, PG&E said.
In addition, "the deregulation law took us out of the business of
forecasting demand and all but prohibited us from building power
plants," said Nelson.
But critics say PG&E did not grasp soon enough how much the power
demands --
particularly in areas such as Silicon Valley -- would climb in the last
few years. In the past decade, no new power plants have been built in
California and the state's population has climbed by almost 14 percent.
PROJECTIONS TOO CONSERVATIVE
"It does seem PG&E's projections were more conservative than they should
have been on the demand side," said Paul Patterson, an analyst at Credit
Suisse First Boston. "But you have to remember the state has discouraged
utilities from owning too much generation, so if you are a utility . . .
it doesn't make a lot of sense to be building new plants."
Another problem was the state's failure in the 1990s to push ahead on
the conservation front. The 1996 deregulation law also effectively froze
energy conservation funding programs at levels where they had been
before the California Public Utilities Commission had abolished them
entirely.
Without any state-required expansion of conservation programs, PG&E
"failed to pursue additional energy efficiency measures that would have
reduced their customers' energy usage," said John White, a lobbyist for
the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.
PG&E recently sent a notice to its customers about energy prices in
California. "Pacific Gas and Electric Company no longer produces the
electricity we bring to your home. We don't make a nickel on the power
we buy for our customers," the notice said.
TURN's Florio said: "PG&E and the other utilities are trying to act like
this is something that came from outer space rather than from their own
negotiations in Sacramento. I think that PG&E more enthusiastically than
any other utility went along with the push for deregulation."
Florio said PG&E "just made a corporate business strategy decision that
they would rather own unregulated plants outside the state than
regulated plants in California. . . . What they didn't count on was the
companies that bought their plants would charge 10 times what utilities
used to charge."
While executives of the utility claim it is on the verge of bankruptcy,
consumer advocates point out that PG&E's parent company, PG&E Corp., saw
its profits increase by 26 percent in the third quarter of last year
alone.
Consumer advocates also say PG&E Corp. has used billions from its
utility subsidiary since deregulation to pay off debt and to repurchase
its own stock on the market to make the parent stronger for other
ventures.
'PG&E HAD GOOD DEAL'
"PG&E had a pretty good deal -- they spent about $25 million to pass and
protect the deregulation law and in return they have (received) $10
billion in bailout money because of that law," said Susannah Churchill
of the California Public Interest Research Group in Sacramento.
PG&E's Nelson said he knows utility customers find it "frustrating
beyond words to deal with this crisis in the most wealthy state in the
most powerful nation in the world." He said PG&E is pledged to do
everything it can to help bring about a solution to the crisis.
CRITICS DON'T BUY ARGUMENT
PG&E argues that the law requires it to keep the assets and debts of its
subsidiaries separate from one another, but many critics aren't buying
that analysis.
"Law and regulation do prevent the regulated utility from subsidizing
its unregulated parent company," said TURN's Florio. "But the law says
nothing about money coming the other way -- from the holding company to
its utility subsidiary."
On Jan. 12, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an order
that Florio says had the effect of shielding PG&E Corp.'s profitable
National Energy Group from the debts faced by its utility subsidiary,
PG&E Co.
PG&E, however, denies that the federal regulatory commission's order
shielded those assets, arguing that it simply allowed the National
Energy Group to obtain its own credit rating so it could continue its
energy- producing business without being saddled with the utility's
plunging credit rating.
HOLDING COMPANY DISPUTE
The utilities won their ability to create holding company structures in
a 1987 decision by the Republican-dominated California Public Utilities
Commission. Don Vial said he was the commission's lone Democrat when he
voted "no" on the plan, opposing it because it allowed holding companies
to protect their profitable arms from sharing profits with ratepayers.
Vial said he realized that the utilities did need to form holding
companies to remain profitable in the competitive marketplace. But he
said he objected to the specific structure approved by the PUC.
"The utilities wanted to capitalize on the public trust that had built
up because they were regulated, and in an increasingly competitive
market they now wanted to make money off other ventures without
providing the assurance that the ratepayers wouldn't end up holding the
bag. The PUC approved a holding company structure that didn't provide
assurances that some of these new companies' earnings would be shared
with ratepayers."
On Friday, California PUC President Loretta Lynch said, "The commission
is looking at its options under state law" in the wake of the federal
regulatory commission's Jan. 12 action protecting National Energy Group.
NOT LAST BAILOUT REQUEST
However the who-pays-for-deregulation battle gets settled, one expert
predicts this won't be the last time PG&E seeks billions in bailout
funding.
Dan Kammen, a professor of energy and society at the University of
California at Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group, said, "If we fast
forward ahead five years, PG&E -- which is partly to blame and partly
victim of this mess -- is going to say, 'We were cash-starved under
deregulation and have fallen behind in installing (renewable energy
sources, such as solar and wind power).' They will ask for a bailout to
increase the renewable energy in their power mix."
Chronicle research librarian Johnny Miller contributed to this report.
---------------------------------------------
PG&E Corp.
With revenues of almost $21 billion, PG&E Corp. markets energy
services and products throughout North America through its National
Energy Group. PG&E Corp. 's businesses also include Pacific Gas and
Electric Co., the Northern and Central California utility that delivers
natural gas and electricity service to one in every 20 Americans.
-- Operations in 21 states
-- One of the largest U.S. transporters of Canadian natural gas
-- 30 power plants in operation, two plants under construction
-- Generation portfolio of 7,000 megawatts
-- More than 10,000 megawatts in new power plant development and
construction
-- Owns one of the largest gas and electric utilities in the country
---------------------------------------------
On Jan. 12 the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission approved a restructuring of PG&E Corp., protecting
the corporation's National Energy Group. PG&E says the restructuring
simply allows National Energy Group to have its own credit rating that
is not saddled with the utility subsidiary's rating problems. But one
consumer advocacy group, The Utility Reform Network, says the order
actually shields National Energy Group's assets from the debts of the
subsidiary utility.
NATIONAL ENERGY GROUP LLC
With regional offices from coast to coast, PG&E Corp.'s National
Energy Group is one of the nation's leading competitive power producers,
has natural gas facilities that connect major producing regions to some
of the fastest- growing markets in North America, and operates one of
the top energy trading businesses in the country.
©2001 San Francisco Chronicle
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Educate yourself & go to these sites:
http://www.auaa.org/timeline/index.html &
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3750/headlines.htm &
http://www.bushneverwonflorida.com & http://www.BUSHorCHIMP.com &
http://www.gorewon2000.net &
http://attach3.egroups.com/attach/2442540/419/gs-244=25=2442540/10-1-4-14/image=jpeg/Inbox.jpg
& http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,425912,00.html