Reply #5: As Governor...

[LoneStarLiberal]

Davis waffled on what to do about the power crisis. No, deregulation was not his idea; it began before he took office. But the impact of a poorly-handled deregulation, Pacific Gas & Electric's bankruptcy, and the power marketers' predatory pricing (Duke and Enron to be exact) all occured while he was Governor and he was not exactly decisive in his attempts to deal with it. In particular PG&E pinned their bankruptcy on Davis' failure to move fast enough to assist them in Spring 2001.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/07/business/07ENER.html?ex=1060488000&en=6fb8e18c4559d516&ei=5070>

I think PG&E chose bankruptcy, but regardless of whether they were driven into bankruptcy or their executives chose it, Californians were still stuck with the effects of it while Davis was Governor.

If you really want to know who to blame for this, I would personally recommend FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee. These guys are the ones who first allowed the hairbrained deregulation scheme and then tried to fix the mess it caused by introducing price caps for electricity. This is how to not implement free market reforms!