Calif. Vote May Reregulate Energy Market

[NVMojo]

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Five years after California suffered through blackouts, soaring electricity prices and the bankruptcy of its largest utility, voters are being asked to roll back a key part of the deregulation effort blamed for the state's energy crisis.

Consumer advocates promoting Proposition 80 on Tuesday's special election ballot say the initiative will allow California to regain control of its energy markets.

"There is no fixing electricity deregulation," said state Sen. Joe Dunn, D-Garden Grove, a supporter of the initiative. "The only solution to our electricity situation is to find a way back to a reregulated system."

Dunn chaired the state Senate committee that investigated the energy crisis. California, he said, "can't go back exactly where we were because we have taken some irrevocable steps, but Proposition 80 is a good first step."

more...

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2005/nov/06/110600845.html

[struggle4progress]

1. This whole catastrophe was so unnecessary. When have rightwing ..

.. deregulation schemes ever helped the country?

[Coastie for Truth]

2. While I favor re-regulation

this Prop does it wrong.

It severely limits new paradigms (distributed generation, cogeneration; discounts for interruptible; discounts for non-peak hour use) and new technologies (more wind, solar).

I am a progressive, liberal, democrat -- and a PhD level engineer, and a follower of Lovins and Ovshinsky. I am voting against Prop 80 -- needs some serious re-engineering and change orders.

[Oerdin]

3. I'm against reregulation

Over the last half decade the loop holes which allowed Enron to create an artificial shortage have been fixed so there is little upside to reregulation. What reregulation would do is prevent people like me only buying green energy like I currently do. Instead, if reregulation is passed I, just like everyone else, would be forced to buy energy from the local monopoly. There would be no price competition and there would be no freedom of choice. Here in California people get calls to switch from various power companies just like the rest of the country gets calls from phone companies. I recall in the early 1980's most of the far left of our party was against telephone deregulation which actually turned out very well with prices falling by 60% in real terms over the next decade. We can see similiar gains in electricity if we keep in place the post-Enron fixes we already have on the books.

I'm afraid a great many people in our party have a knee jerk reaction towards regulating everything. We don't want to be completely unregulated but neither do we want to be bound in red tape. We can have pro-competition laws without being total sell outs the way most Republicans are but we will have to dump our knee jerk reaction we have on several issues.