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 The lights are off and no one is home!
California and The Power ProblemsCalifornia and the states around California are crying about not having enough power to go around. You may ask why is California having this problem? You can blame the power problem on the Left Liberal anti everything nuts that live in California. If you can find something wrong with anything you can get a law in place to outlaw it. With all the anti everything in the state I am not surprised that there isn't more than just power and natural gas problems in the state. California is the richest state in America and it also has the most Left wing, communist, fruit cakes, anti everything people, that live on this planet. With all the laws that California has on the books it can not even keep kids from shooting each other. Maybe there is just something wrong with the hole idea of just making laws and not enforcing them. If you need an example just take a look at California. If the people of California had ANY sense they would build there own power generators and fix the problem, no they have to pay PG&E (Pacific Gouge and Extortion) and the other power companies for the power. Let's put a stop to this and JUST TURN THE POWER OFF!! Let's see how long the U.S.A. stays out of a deep recession! Let the Left Wing anti everything, communist, nut cases last with all their laws on guns, smoking, cutting trees down, burning, fishing, save the owls, and clean air laws help them! The people of California have made so many laws on everything, now they can not build the power plants because it will screw up the water supply, dirty the air or they just do not want the power plant in their back yard. STOP CRYING YOU ASKED FOR IT!!!!
The State of California is now going to tear down the air port in San Diego (which works just fine) and build a NEW airport in a different area of San Diego instead of building a power plant. Not only are they building a new airport, they are going to put in yet another sports arena, which we do not need. Now, if you add up the cost of tearing down the old air port, building of the new airport, and the cost of building a new sports arena, not to mention paying for the construction and purchasing of the land it has to go on, California could solve it's own power supply problem by purchasing the land and building it's own power plant.
California's Energy America has engaged in some finger wagging lately because California doesn't have enough electricity to meet its needs. The rest of the country (including George W. Bush's energy secretary Spencer Abraham, who wants Californians to suffer through blackouts as justification for drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) seems to be just fine with letting Californians dangle in the breeze without enough power to meet their needs. They laugh at Californians' frivolity. Well, everybody. Here's how it really is: California ranks 48th in the nation in power consumed per person. California grows more than half the nation's fruit, nuts and vegetables. We're keeping them. We need something to eat when the power goes out. We grow 99 percent or more of the nation's almonds, artichokes, dates, figs,kiwifruit, olives, persimmons, pistachios, prunes, raisins and walnuts. Hope you won't miss them. California is the nation's number one dairy state. We're keeping our dairy products. We'll need plenty of fresh ones since our refrigerators can't be relied upon. Got milk? We Californians are gonna keep all our high-tech software in state. Silicon Valley is ours, after all. Without enough electricity, which you're apparently keeping for yourselves, we just plain don't have enough software to spare. We're keeping all our airplanes. California builds a good percentage of the commercial airliners available to fly you people to where you want to go. When yours wear out, you'd better hope Boeing's Washington plant can keep you supplied. There isn't enough electricity here to allow us to export any more planes than we need ourselves. And while we're at it, we're keeping all our high-tech aerospace stuff, too, like the sophisticated weapons systems that let you sleep at night, not worried you might wake up under the rule of some foreign kook. Oh, yeah, and if you want to make a long-distance call, remember where the satellite components and tracking systems come from. Maybe you could get back in the habit of writing letters. Want to see a blockbuster movie this weekend? Come to California. We make them here. Since we'll now have to make them with our own electricity, we're keeping them. Even if we shot them somewhere else, the labs, printing facilities, editing facilities, and sound facilities are all here. Want some nice domestic wine? We produce over 17 million gallons per year. We'll need all it to drown our sorrows when we think about the fact that no matter how many California products we export to make the rest of America's lives better, America can't see its way clear to help us out with a little electricity. You can no longer have any of our wine. You all complain that we don't build enough power plants. Well, you don't grow enough food, write enough software, make enough movies, build enough airplanes and defense systems or make enough wine.
Love,
Here is a recent story on the power problem. California orders statewide blackouts. Millions of people in California - the richest state in America - are hit by power cuts as officials act to prevent the electricity grid from collapsing.
Tuesday, 20 March, 2001, 07:40 GMT - BBC With traffic lights not working, Californians directed cars by hand California power officials, citing a severe shortage of electricity, have extended a series of rolling blackouts across the state to relieve strain on the grid. A second round of controlled power cuts on Monday evening followed outages earlier in the day which officials said were necessary because of dry weather and technical faults. They lasted longer and affected more of the state than a round of power cuts in January, and many consumers feared they were a sign of what to expect over the summer. While the January power cuts affected only northern California and lasted about two hours, Monday's first round of blackouts lasted four hours and took in southern California as well as the north.
PG&E seeks bankruptcy California's utility says bankruptcy won't affect service, no layoffs planned April 6, 2001: 3:02 p.m. ET CNN
The company, a unit of PG&E Corp. (PCG: Research, Estimates), filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Northern California despite months of efforts by state officials to bail out the cash-starved company. Bankruptcy will not have any affect on services offered by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. which has 13 million customers. The utility does not expect any layoffs and also vowed to pay all its debts, executives on a conference call said. "We are committed to running the utility," said Gordon Smith, PG&E Co. president and CEO. ""This is a very viable financial entity save for the huge unrecovered wholesale costs." In Chapter 11, a company is protected from creditors as it tries to reorganize. PG&E (PCG: down $4.18 to $7.20, Research, Estimates) the parent of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., provides power and natural gas to central and northern California. Nether parent firm, PG&E, nor any of its other units were included or are affected by the filing. PG&E Co.'s decision contributed to an overall slump in the energy sector Friday. PG&E Co., which has about $9 billion in debt, notified the Governor last summer of the impending crisis, executives said. It has been hit, along with other California utilities, by soaring wholesale power costs and the state's 1996 deregulation law. Energy deregulation has caused blackouts throughout the state of California. Soaring utility rates have been the subject of much debate in California as the wholesale prices of electricity have skyrocketed, jumping from an average of $30 per megawatt hour last year to $330 in January. California was the first state to deregulate its electricity market in 1996. The move was supposed to lower the bills of consumers by preventing most utilities from passing rising costs on to their customers until at least March 2002. Under deregulation, the state's investor-owned utilities sold most of their power generating plants. Now they must buy back that power at market prices. On Thursday, California Governor Gray Davis proposed his own plan for rescuing Pacific G&E and Southern California Edison. Davis proposed an average 26.5 percent rate increase for some customers of Pacific G&E, SoCal Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., the state's third-larges t investor-owned utility.
PG&E Co.'s bankruptcy decision was not met with approval by rival SoCal Edison, which has not filed for court protection. "We at Southern California Edison continue to believe that working out a comprehensive solution to our current crisis is a preferable course to take," said SoCal Edison CEO John Bryson in a statement. Analysts now believe that the PG&E Co. bankruptcy filing may prompt SoCal Edison, owned by Rosemead, Calif.-based Edison International (EIX: down $4.39 to $8.25, Research, Estimates), to follow a similar route. "We are clearly surprised by this action coming after a call with the Governor's Advisers last night that seemed promising toward a solution to this ongoing crisis," said Merrill Lynch analyst Steven Fleishman. "However, PG&E was not convinced that these negotiations would ultimately succeed." Executives on the PG&E Co. call declined to detail stumbling blocks involved in the negotiations. However, they did admit that the utility's huge debt played a part in the decision to file for bankruptcy protection. Negotiations between PG&E Co. and the Governor have stalled with no face-to-face meetings in the past month and Chapter 11 will force parties involved in the process to reach some sort of consensus. "The political regulatory process has been able to negotiate but not close the deal," executives said. "A federal bankruptcy court is a better way to get a deal closed."
PG&E defends awarding bonuses prior to bankruptcy
April 8, 2001 LOS ANGELES, California -- The bad blood between Pacific Gas & Electric Co., California's largest utility, and state officials continued unabated over the weekend as the utility defended its award of $50 million in employee bonuses a day before declaring bankruptcy. "The money was part of our employees' overall compensation package. Part of it is based on the financial condition of the company and part is based on meeting departmental targets," Ron Low, a spokesman for Pacific G&E, a unit of PG&E Corp., said on Sunday. On Friday, the utility, which provides northern and central California with electricity and natural gas, filed with a federal court for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing $9 billion owed as a result of the state's 1996 power deregulation plan, which prohibits the pass-through to utility customers of sharply higher wholesale power costs. Low said the total of $50 million for incentive and bonus pay for 6,000 managers and other employees was lower than it otherwise would have been "because we are in a financial crisis." He also said the utility's top management was not eligible for annual bonuses this time around, although some did receive merit-based cost-of-living pay increases. Bankruptcy court approves payments The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California on Friday granted the utility the authority to pay the employee compensation and benefits out of certain bank accounts and cash management systems. The court also authorized Pacific G&E to continue to fulfill post-bankruptcy filing obligations to suppliers and other creditors. After hearing about the bonus payments on Saturday, California Gov. Gray Davis said that the utility's "management is suffering from two afflictions: denial and greed." In response, Pacific G&E in a statement accused Davis of launching "a campaign-style attack on our company," when he should instead be "focusing all his attention on solving the state's year-long and ever worsening energy crisis." The utility went on to say of Davis, "Unfortunately, he has chosen to aim at the thousands of men and women who have worked tirelessly and professionally through this crisis to deliver gas and electric service to our millions of customers. These employees have suffered for months due to a crisis not of their making. California would be far better served if the governor turned his attention to the crisis at hand." A spokesman for the governor said on Sunday that bankruptcy attorneys were meeting over the weekend, but at this point there was little the state could do with regard to Pacific G&E. "They've put it in the courtroom, so now there's not very much we can do," said Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio. Although California's Public Utilities Commission awarded utilities a nearly 40 percent rate hike in March, that decision did not cover some $4.1 billion that Pacific Gas and Electric had spent on earlier power purchases, raising the risk of a massive write-off, the company warned. Gov. Davis outlined a competing proposal last week that would have provided funds for the cash-strapped utility, but only if it agreed to sell its transmission system to the state and to provide regulated power for 10 years. By throwing the utility into court-supervised reorganization, the parent company PG&E Corp. has the chance to argue for a better deal, analysts said, although there are major questions about whether a bankruptcy judge would have the authority to order higher rates for the 13 million Californians served by Pacific G&E. Edison still talking with state officials Maviglio said Gov. Davis met Friday night with John Bryson, chief executive of California's second-largest utility, Edison International's Southern California Edison Co., and is hopeful that those discussions will pay off. A PG&E crew works on power lines in San Francisco on Friday "There were more meetings with Edison in San Francisco this weekend. We have a few remaining issues, but hopefully the talks can conclude within the next few days," Maviglio said. SoCal Edison, based in the Los Angeles suburb of Rosemead, also owes billions for unrecovered wholesale power purchases. The utility said on Friday it does not intend to seek bankruptcy protection and was still working with the state on a way to stay solvent, including possibly earmarking a portion of the recent rate hike as payment to creditors. Those plans may no longer include a state takeover of Edison's portion of California's electric transmission grid since such a move would have required participation of all three investor-owned utilities: Pacific G&E, Edison and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co. Edison said on Saturday that it was pulling out of the 2002 Rose Bowl Parade because it does not have enough money to build a float.
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