Shadow

California’s debacle followed by Enron’s scandal has cast a broad shadow over state and federal energy initiatives this year, according to former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), speaking last Thursday at a two-day industry conference in Seattle, “Buying and Selling Power in the West.”

California’s debacle followed by Enron’s scandal has cast a broad shadow over state and federal energy initiatives this year, according to former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton (R-WA), speaking Thursday at a two-day industry conference in Seattle, “Buying and Selling Power in the West.”

With the shadow of one major utility’s bankruptcy barely cast, California Gov. Gray Davis late Monday announced a “memorandum of agreement” with the state’s other major financially wounded investor-owned utility, Southern California Edison Co. in which the state will purchase the Edison transmission grid assets in return for a way out of its credit crunch and back to solvency.

The futures market gave the impression it was heading higheryesterday when February opened at Tuesday’s high and quickly tradedto $1.85. But the selling dried up, leaving the market vulnerableto light selling for the rest of the session. The February contractclosed down 5.1 cents for the day at $1.77.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has remanded an orderapproving the El Paso Natural Gas rate settlement for furtherreview, citing as its reason FERC’s refusal to give SouthernCalifornia Edison (Edison) the opportunity to challenge theagreement based on its status as an indirect customer of thepipeline.