The special California state Senate investigative committee last Thursday announced it will subpoena Enron Corp.’s former CEO Jeff Skilling and two other former executives from the company this week to appear at a hearing in Sacramento April 3. Following approval by the year-old Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation in the Wholesale Energy Market this week, the subpoenas are expected to be served Monday, according to a committee staff member.

Enron is being targeted at this time because of its pending bankruptcy proceedings, the committee staff member said. Ultimately, the committee intends to hold hearings on each of the major power suppliers from the period of roughly mid-2000 through mid-2001.

The other two former Enron executives being requested to testify are Steven Kean, a former executive vice president, and Jeff Dasovich, a former Enron governmental affairs representative based in San Francisco and one-time attorney for the California Public Utilities Commission.

Sen. Joseph Dunn, the select committee chairman and a former Orange County prosecutor, indicated that these three particular former employees are being sought because they were “the most knowledgeable” about Enron’s activities in the California energy markets over the times being examined.

Elsewhere, other merchant generators reacted strongly against the California attorney general’s lawsuits, which were filed Monday in a state superior court in San Francisco. The lawsuits allege four generators overpriced and under-supplied the state electricity transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, in the real-time ancillary services market, manipulating emergency supplies to drive up wholesale spot prices. From its Tulsa headquarters, Williams strongly denied violating any rules or regulations, noting that over the past year “there have been several investigations about overcharges and market manipulation and to date there have been no findings in support of these allegations.” Reliant Energy earlier in the week had a similar reaction.

Duke Energy, one of the generators not cited so far, confirmed that it is in discussions with the state about its probe into the generator’s operations during the periods in question, but it is doing so in the context of “trying to work toward solutions,” not necessarily trying to escape litigation from the state AG.

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