“I don’t think there’s a darn thing the [Bush] administration can do” to rescue California from the inevitability of energy supply shortages and blackouts this summer, a White House energy official said yesterday.

“The White House is looking at all [of] the options they can do” to help alleviate supply shortages in the wholesale energy markets in California and the western region by summer, she noted, adding that she has seen recommendations ranging from “the ridiculous to the sublime.” However, in the end, she believes California may be pretty much on its own.

The Bush administration “fully recognizes that California is not just a California-only problem,” the official said, but she doubted it would ever resort to price controls as a possible solution. “I can never say never. [However,] I can’t imagine” a situation occurring in California this summer that would cause the White House to flip-flop on this issue, she noted.

The White House energy task force, which is headed up by Vice President Dick Cheney, will release “sometime this spring” its much-anticipated report that will identify the nation’s energy problems and make recommendations on how to confront them, she said. There is no certain date for when it will be issued.

In the meantime, the Cabinet-level task force — which has been inundated with more than 800 recommendations from the energy industry and others — has developed a background report, the official said. The background reports spends a “significant amount of time” addressing two issues — alternative fuels and energy efficiency. “We hope there will be some groundbreaking…..things” in the final document, she noted. She indicated the report will not include proposals to provide the energy industry with tax or other economic incentives.

The document is expected to include a recommendation to open the coastal plain region of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, but this isn’t likely to get through Congress. Sen. John Breaux (D-LA) told a meeting of the National Ocean Industries Association yesterday that the controversial issue of drilling in the Alaska region won’t fly on Capitol Hill.

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