In no way once more can we enable out-of-state profiteers to hold California hostage

A dysfunctional energy marketplace, driven by out-of-state energy providers and brokers, put California in peril throughout the last 7 years. In 1996, the Legislature and also the Governor launched an untested restructuring of California's electrical energy to unregulated private corporations. The price tag of electricity, extended regulated, was to be set, rather, inside a freewheeling commodities market place. Proponents of deregulation envisioned lower energy fees and smaller electrical energy bills but instead we got skyrocketing costs, price gouging, and an unreliable provide of electrical energy.


The out-of-state generators who purchased most of our utility's power plants were charging California a number of hundred percent a lot more for wholesale electricity than it paid the year ahead of. As an alternative to utilizing its exclusive powers to lower these record impact crusher costs, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission shirked its responsibilities to protect ratepayers from this legalized highway robbery and made matters worse when, in December, they lifted the challenging cost cap, causing the typical cost per megawatt hour to boost almost 900 percent. Which is like paying 25 dollars for a three-dollar gallon of milk. On some occasions, the merchant generators even refused to sell California back its personal energy since they could discover greater rock crusher rates elsewhere. Worst of all, there is evidence that some generators withheld electricity from the California grid to create artificial scarcity; which, in turn, drove up the cost astronomically.


Electricity isn't an exotic commodity to become traded in the chaotic equivalent of a futures markets; electricity is a fundamental necessity of life. It can be the quite fuel that powers an economy. We must regain control over the power that's generated in California and commit it to the public fantastic. Never again can we permit out-of-state profiteers to hold California hostage. By no means once again will we permit out-of-state generators to threaten to turn off lights with the flip of their switch.