Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK), chairman of the Senate Energycommittee, yesterday announced plans to hold hearings on theCalifornia energy crisis within the next week. The chairman echoedthe Bush administration’s position that California must take thelead in solving its problem with support from FERC, theadministration and Congress.

“California needs to make a good faith effort to accept itsresponsibility in this energy crisis and pay some of the bills. Itis then that the federal government can take a look at possibleefforts to help. But it is not up to the federal government to bailout California for a series of bad decisions.”

Murkowski said the reason for California’s power woes aresimple: the state lacks adequate generation. The state “has goneout of its way to discourage construction of new power plants,” hesaid, citing CPUC data showing that between 1996 and 1999 only 672MW of generation was added when demand increased 5,500 MW. “IfCalifornia’s electrical demand grows at only 5% annual rate — assome are projecting — California will have to add three 1,000 MWpower plants every year just to stay even.”

“The state has made systematic decisions over a 10-year periodto nor produce new power in California while at the same time theywatched their power consumption grow. The state made deregulationdecisions that did not really remove regulations, it simply changedthem, And now in the face of mounting debt and possible utilitybankruptcy, the state refuses to allow rate increases to pay forexpensive out-of-state power. This situation cannot continue.”

Murkowski concluded that the state must take the lead role andbe supported by consumers and the federal government in thefollowing ways:

©Copyright 2001 Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. Thepreceding news report may not be republished or redistributed, inwhole or in part, in any form, without prior written consent ofIntelligence Press, Inc.