Free Republic

<p>WASHINGTON -- West Coast senators blasted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at a hearing Thursday for its reluctance to order revisions to billions of dollars' worth of long-term electricity contracts because of massive market manipulation by power sellers.</p> <p>"The issue today is whether FERC is capable of doing its job," charged Sen. Marie Cantwell, D-Wash.</p>

WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - Some 37 energy companies and municipal utilities that engaged in questionable trading strategies with Enron Corp. (ENRNQ) should show why they do not need to turn over their unjust profits, federal investigators said on Wednesday.Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners made public a several-hundred page report prepared by agency lawyers and investigators that called for 37 companies to prove that they did not manipulate Western U.S. markets during the California energy crisis of 2000-01."The evidence indicates that Enron, on its own, could not have implemented its trading strategies. It was only with the willing cooperation...

San Marcos steps back from power site projectCity's stake in venture too risky, council feels By John Berhman STAFF WRITERDecember 12, 2002SAN MARCOS – The city is getting out of the Magnolia Power Project, a multimillion-dollar electricity-generating plant that city leaders now say is too risky a venture for San Marcos. Citing unknowns in the fluctuating electricity market and fears that the state soon may be taking money from the city to balance its budget, the City Council, sitting as the Discovery Valley Utility board, voted unanimously last night to withdraw from the multicity Magnolia project. The city's cost for...

<p>ROSEVILLE -- The Roseville City Council has terminated an agreement with the Enron Corp. subsidiary that sought to build a 750-megawatt power plant in Placer County.</p>

<p>SAN FRANCISCO – PG&E Corp.'s lawyer Monday called state energy regulators' plan to reorganize its bankrupt Pacific Gas & Electric utility unit "a set of empty promises."</p> <p>PG&E lawyer Steve Neal questioned whether the California Public Utilities Commission plan for Pacific Gas would garner investment- grade ratings on the first day of a trial over their rival proposals for the state's largest utility. The commission's plan would raise $8.3 billion through debt securities.</p>

<p>Ex-employee of the trade journal says natural-gas prices were manipulated by companies to boost incomes.</p> <p>SACRAMENTO – A former employee of a natural-gas trade journal told California lawmakers Monday that the daily lists of gas prices were manipulated to boost prices.</p>

LOS ANGELES -(Dow Jones)- California Public Utilities Commission board member Michael Peevey Thursday directed energy division staff to examine generators' responses to a report that said the firms could have prevented most blackouts and service interruptions in 2000-2001. The mid-September report, released by CPUC President Loretta Lynch, said six energy companies failed to produce all available power during the outages and interruptions. Generators didn't follow the instructions of the state's grid operator and didn't make plants available as soon as possible after outages, the report said. Duke Energy, Inc , Williams Companies and Mirant Corp (NYSE:MIR - News) have issued...

The Western U.S. could face power outages in 2003 despite adequate margins and lower prices as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's standard market design unfolds across the region, according to a report from Henwood Energy Services Inc., a Sacramento research-and-marketing company specializing in the energy industry. "The crisis of 2000-2001 demonstrated that exposure to spot market conditions while retail rates were frozen was extremely risky. While spot prices are now low and risk of shortages seems remote today, a severe drought such as that which occurred in 2000-2001, could bring a repeat of problems," said Richard Lauckhart, the study's lead investigator....

<p>The Laguna Hills resident is professor of economics at Pepperdine University & author of "Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics."</p> <p>The state Public Utilities Commission last week announced that the cause of California's numerous electric-power blackouts of recent years was the deliberate, malicious withholding of the use of available power-generation capacity by the major power-producing companies.</p>

ou are one of only a handful of major players selling wholesale electricity. Surely the thought has to occur to you: what would happen to prices if one of my plants just happened to go off line? And when companies act on that thought . . . well, you get the picture." I wrote that in March 2001, when the California electricity crisis was at its height. Even then the experts I talked to — economists who followed the situation closely, and kept an open mind — believed that energy companies were deliberately creating shortages. But only in the last...

<p>The story of Hetch Hetchy Water and Power reflects the stunning betrayal of a civic vision.</p> <p>Eighty-nine years ago, Congress allowed San Francisco to dam the Tuolumne River and flood part of Yosemite National Park - on the condition that it provide inexpensive hydroelectric power to San Franciscans.</p>

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission judge said Monday he expects to decide in September on allegations El Paso Corp. (NYSE:EP - News) withheld capacity on its natural gas pipelines during California's 2000-2001 energy crisis. ADVERTISEMENT The California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Edison International's Southern California Edison claim withholding of space on El Paso's pipelines to California contributed to a late- 2000 natural gas price spike that raised the state's power prices. FERC Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner said he is reviewing voluminous briefs in the case against El Paso,...

<p>California continues to build its claim that the state was unfairly gouged by power companies last year, but but consumers paying record-high electricity rates shouldn't expect to see refund checks anytime soon.</p> <p>While Gov. Gray Davis loudly maintains the state is owed $8.9 billion by the nation's generators, experts say the final tally will be nowhere near that high even if California wins its case.</p>

<p>California continues to build its claim that the state was unfairly gouged by power companies last year, but consumers paying record-high electricity rates shouldn't expect to see refund checks anytime soon.</p> <p>While Gov. Gray Davis loudly maintains the state is owed $8.9 billion by the nation's generators, experts say the final tally will be nowhere near that high even if California wins its case.</p>

Here's the link:poke this!Somebody please post this as I always screw it up.

<p>Washington -- Federal regulators unanimously created new price limits for California's electricity market Wednesday -- as state officials had urgently requested -- but only after ordering the state to form a new governing board independent of the governor's control.</p> <p>The new limit of $250 per megawatt hour is higher than the current price ceiling of $91.87 that was set to expire Sept. 30. Imposed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in June 2001, the limit has been widely credited as a key element in quashing the enormous price spikes and blackouts experienced during the state's power crisis last year.</p>

As California's electricity crisis erupted in 2000, SDG&E assured customers that it wasn't profiting from selling them power. Its profits came only from delivering electricity, the utility said. Then in 2001, SDG&E said it had in fact earned about $245 million from power sales. Now the company says it's entitled to $560 million in electricity sale profits during the crisis. The new claim – which amounts to nearly $500 from every local utility customer – was disclosed this week in sworn testimony by a top SDG&E official before the California Public Utilities Commission. The $560 million claim includes $200...

<p>Washington -- A day after a government report blasted his agency as inept and incapable of regulating electricity markets, the nation's top energy regulator called the findings "right on."</p> <p>"Quite frankly, most anybody that would look at this would come to the same conclusion," Patrick Wood III, chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said Tuesday in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle.</p>

<p>Coal-burning utilities will not need to install more pollution controls when they expand.</p> <p>WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency will relax air pollution rules to make it easier for utilities to upgrade and expand their coal-burning power plants, Bush administration sources said late Wednesday.</p>

TRACY -- State politics and economics could do what local leaders could not: delay -- if not dismantle -- plans for a 169-megawatt power plant near Tracy. And it could happen despite a state committee's recommendation in favor of the controversial Tracy Peaker Project. Plant operator GWF Energy signed a 10-year contract with the state Department of Water Resources that requires the site just south of Tracy to start generating electricity by October. But the state Energy Commission has yet to license the plant and cannot do so until convening in mid-July. GWF officials have said they need six...