Candor

FERC Chairman Pat Wood’s normally sunny demeanor quickly turned to one of agitation last Wednesday after Commission staff briefed him and other Commissioners on an order that directs Wisconsin Electric Power Co. (WEPCO) to explain apparent factual conflicts relating to the separation of control area and merchant function employees.

Displaying an unusual amount of public candor last week, the parent company CEO of near-bankrupt Southern California Edison Co., Rosemead, CA, bared his corporate soul to a Los Angeles business leaders’ forum, admitting bankruptcy for the utility is a very real possibility unless there is an eleventh-hour reprieve granted by the state legislature.

In a surprising bit of candor, the chief political architect ofCalifornia’s 1996 electric industry restructuring law last weekrevealed that out-of-state energy companies paying high prices forgeneration assets, exceeded state lawmakers goals of gettingconsumers out from under the enormous stranded costs of the state’sthree major investor-owned utilities.

In a surprising bit of candor, the chief political architect ofCalifornia’s 1996 electric industry restructuring law told a groupof industry participants at a statewide energy roundtablediscussion in San Diego that the state’s lawmakers intentionallyderegulated generation to draw out-of-state capital to pay off theenormous stranded costs of the state’s three major investor-ownedutilities.

Showing unusual candor and market aggressiveness, the CEO ofnonprofit, state-chartered California electricity power exchange(CalPX), George Sladoje, recently outlined plans for the CalPX toexpand through alliances and partnerships with private sectortechnology firms. Expansion plans are drawing heavy criticism fromrival, for-profit power exchange Automated Power Exchange (APX),which wants federal regulators to reign in the stategovernment-created operator of the world’s largest wholesale powermarket.