Ross

H. Ross Perot, the founder of Plano, TX-based Perot System Corp., will testify July 11 before the California state senate’s investigative committee looking at alleged energy market manipulation in the state’s 2000-2001 electricity crisis. Perot’s appearance is voluntary, but a state legislative committee staff member said there still may be subpoenas eventually directed at Perot and his firm. The center of the controversy is a PowerPoint presentation on “holes” in the state’s newly restructured electricity market that Perot Systems help set up in 1997-98 from an information systems perspective under contract to two state entities — the transmission grid operator, Cal-ISO, and the now bankrupt California Power Exchange (Cal-PX). As part of subpoenaed information from Houston-based Reliant Energy, a copy of the Perot Systems’ presentation came into the hands of investigators with the state senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market.