Echoing what state politicians and regulators have been saying for a long time, California’s attorney general Monday asked for a rehearing of a May 31 order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission regarding the state AG’s earlier complaint against seven marketers selling wholesale power supplies in the state.

State AG Bill Lockyer’s latest filing contends that FERC is not doing its job of assuring “just and reasonable” electricity rates, for which the regulators have a “fundamental obligation” under the Federal Power Act. Lockyer said FERC has refused to order “meaningful relief for Californians.

“It refused to order refunds for either the (state transmission grid operator) Cal-ISO and (the now defunct California Power Exchange) Cal-PX transactions that occurred before Oct. 2, 2000, or bilateral purchases by the state (power-buying agency) Department of Water Resources (DWR) during 2001,” the state AG’s filing stated.

Lockyer’s latest filing noted that California does not seek to re-litigate issues already decided by FERC, and emphasized that the state is seeking to show that the federal regulators erred legally in denying the AG’s earlier complaint against the marketer/generators. The new action urges FERC to require the companies named in the original suit to fulfill their quarterly reporting requirements to the federal regulators — something the AG argued they have not done.

FERC’s May 31 order, Lockyer said, “reveals another disturbing dimension of the California crisis” — namely, that the marker/generators’ “widespread and persistent violations of the (FERC) reporting requirements kept the commission (and other market monitors) in the dark, preventing the agency from doing an adequate job of protecting consumers.” As a result, Lockyer’s filing noted that California consumers have had to “pay billions of dollars more for power than what the federal law permits.”

The companies named in the original complaint to FERC by the California AG are: BC Hydro’s marketer, PowerEx; Coral Power LLC; Dynegy Power Marketing, Inc.; Enron Power Marketing , Inc.; Mirant Americas Energy Marketing, LP; Reliant Energy Services, Inc.; and Williams Energy Marketing & Trading Co. among others.

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