Energy earns spot on ballot

Sacramento Bee ^ | 6/21/5 | Carrie Peyton Dahlberg

[SmithL]

Nearly five years after blackouts rolled across California, electricity surged back toward the spotlight Monday when the last of eight voter initiatives qualified for November's special election.

Like the claims and counterclaims that wracked the state during the 2000-2001 energy crisis, nothing about the electricity initiative is likely to be simple.

Sell It Yourself Despite the convenient labels, California never really deregulated electricity when the state Legislature changed the ground rules of the once-monopoly business in 1996.

Now, the ballot measure wouldn't really re-regulate, although the consumer group promoting it likes to call it a "re-regulation and blackout avoidance" initiative.

What it would do is thwart any expansion of something called "direct access," a way that big businesses and other power users can bolt from their utilities and buy power from independent providers.

Today, no new direct access is permitted in California anyway, but roughly 15 percent of all the electricity used in the state is sold by independent providers who lined up their contracts before the practice was banned.

Their hope has been that someday, when more of the state's lingering bills from the crisis have been paid down, they'll be allowed to expand again.

The electricity initiative would forbid that expansion, but would allow existing deals to stay on the books, and allow existing direct-access customers to negotiate new contracts when theirs expire.

It also would allow utilities, which once owned most of the state's power plants, to decide on a case-by-case basis whether it would be cheaper to build new plants themselves or buy power from someone else.

And it would put into a law a number of other energy policies, several of which already are being carried out.

[SmithL]

'Re-regulating' electricity

Here are some of the provisions of the electricity initiative:

• Restrict electricity customers' ability to switch from private utilities to other providers.

• Give California Public Utilities Commission regulation authority over certain electric service providers.

• Require all electric sellers to increase renewable energy by 2010.

• Add an estimated $4 million to PUC's operating costs, a bill that would be fully offset by fee revenue hikes.

Source: California secretary of state

[SmithL]

In other words, our rates are going up, AGAIN.

[calcowgirl]

1114. Electric Service Providers. Regulation. Initiative Statute.
(aka The Repeal of Electricity Deregulation and Blackout Prevention Act (version 2))
File No. SA05RF0053 Amdt. #1-NS

Full Text (PDF File 1071kb/ 15 pages)

Full Analysis (html) from the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO)

LAO Summary:  The initiative addresses five aspects of the state’s electricity market: regulation of electric service providers, direct access, the procurement process, the resource adequacy requirement, and the renewable portfolio standard.