Saying that it is time to stop “playing politics” and work with federal regulators to create a viable wholesale energy market, the head of Arizona’s Corporation Commission lashed out Monday at neighboring California officials from the governor on down to the regulators. He made his comments as part of a presentation to a regional energy conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Drawing on his four terms in the Arizona legislature and one more recent election to the Arizona five-member regulatory panel, Marc Spitzer said you can never “underestimate a politician trying to cover his a__.”

Spitzer concluded that California’s prolonged battle with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that has gone on for three years is the result of Gov. Gray Davis trying to protect his political career — first in a 2002 re-election campaign and more recently in response to a recall movement that appears to have forced a special election later this year or next. (Recall petition signatures are now being counted statewide.)

As a result, Spitzer said he thinks California’s Democratic-controlled Congressional delegation, state legislature and state regulatory commission have all rallied around a “war” against FERC.

“It is all based on the politics of trying to save Gray Davis’ political career,” Spitzer told an industry audience at the first day of a two-day Law Seminars International Conference, “Electric Power in the Southwest.”

Noting that in mid-July, California still doesn’t have a state budget for its new fiscal year that started July 1 and faces a $38 billion deficit, Spitzer said he would expect Davis “would have other things to worry about, but apparently that is not the case.

“Eventually, I would hope the people of California — especially the business and community leaders — would insist upon the governor trying to work to actually get something done after three years of messing around and playing politics. Now it is time to drop (the war) and work with federal regulators to establish a wholesale market that works.

“We’ve tried to do that in Arizona (with a so-called “Track B” proceeding ongoing), because we know that until you have a valid, vibrant, transparent, and liquid wholesale market, you really can never really have retail competition. This is the time to move in that direction.

“And whether we like it or not, California is the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the western United States, and until we’ve reached closure on California, we’re not going to meet our goal of establishing viable wholesale energy markets.”

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