Commmissioner

Acknowledging that the state’s cost for spot wholesale power supplies has increased significantly since the PG&E utility bankruptcy filing, the newest member of the California Public Utilities Commission lashed out at merchant generators and power suppliers last week for “manipulating” the western wholesale electricity market and extracting billions of dollars out of the states’ economies. If the situation does not ease soon, Gov. Gray Davis is likely to seize some of the private sector power plants, according to Geoffery Brown, a former San Francisco public defender named to the CPUC by Davis earlier this year.