You have a way with words, I was thinking that that had to be worth quite a bit to these folks.
Any idea if Calpine is going to build all those peaker plants or if they have the money to?
I think the better question, has to do with the "regulatory climate" in California. By that I mean both the environmental regulatory climate, i.e. does a permit mean there will not be additional environmental challenges during construction. I also mean the climate by which DWR is forced to honor its contractual commitments. If the market views the contracts that are backed up by power plant revenues as not worth the paper they are written on, Calpine will have a hard time getting money. If contracts are viewed as solid commitments, then Calpine can use them for financing. Gov Davis and Lockyer by trying to find any litigation excuse to break the contracts have done a lot of harm, but by "negoitating a settlement" and dropping litigation they have mitigated the damage they did earlier.
The short answer is that I think Calpine will have some problems raising capital as the state's credit rating will be the ultimate backstop on Calpine's money and I don't expect the State to keep their credit rating unless they raise taxes, which I don't think Davis and others running for re-election will allow to happen.
Looks like they got concerned that some of the plants were in danger of not getting built!
And they came down hard on the High Desert facility for one!
Do I read that right?