Davis names ex-Edison chief to PUC

Sacramento Bee ^ | Wednesday, March 6, 2002 | Stuart Leavenworth

[Toidylop]

Gov. Gray Davis has appointed a former president of Southern California Edison to a state panel charged with regulating Edison and other public utilities.

Davis said Michael R. Peevey would bring "more than three decades of experience" to the Public Utilities Commission -- experience that immediately came under fire from the state's consumer groups.

[Toidylop]

Just give comrade Davis enough rope... :)

[flamefront]

Payoff time. Too bad the compliners here did not have enough money for Davis; they might have been listened to.

Edison certainly contributed well.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for posting this!

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[Grampa Dave]

tl, thanks for posting this.

I have a feeling that most of Edison's present and past top officers are all card carrying demonicRats and backers of Davis for decades! My memory seems to recall some appointed to the PUC by MoonBeam, Davis's boss at that time, appointed the current CEO of Edison to ruin/run the PUC back in Moonbeam's time!

[Dog Gone]

Hired by Davis to negotiate with the utility, Peevey reportedly struck a deal with PG&E Chairman Bob Glynn that would have let PG&E charge ratepayers for all its costs of buying wholesale electricity. But other Davis advisers objected to the deal and the negotiations ultimately fell apart.

Lest anyone forget, Governor Davis did not want to allow this utility to cover its own costs, nor would he allow them to enter into long term contracts for power.

And this guy wants another term?

[Grampa Dave]

Davis = poster boy on what not to do!

[YaYa123]

I just watched Judy Woodruff interview Gray Davis. Unbelievable!! She asked a question about Simon's policy on energy, and Davis answers by saying Simon is anti-choice. This is going to be ugly!

Then she interviewed Simon, and I was impressed! He challenged everything Davis said, in clear, no uncertain terms.

Davis said, Simon "ran a savings and loan into the ground". He also said Simon had no experience managing anything. Simon jumped on that inconsistency. He said, "Davis can't have it both ways.".

Simon said Davis bragged he grew the CA economy from 7th to 5th. Simon said if he did so it was at the expense of having a 10 billion dollar deficit.

Davis is going to have his hands full. He was mean-spirited, accusatory, and on the full frontal attack. Even in California, that's got to look pretty desperate coming the day after the primary.

[kimosabe31]

"Lest anyone forget, Governor Davis did not want to allow this utility to cover its own costs, nor would he allow them to enter into long term contracts for power.

And this guy wants another term?"

But...but...but...Davis is a "problem solving democrat". I even heard him say so himself on TV last nite.

BTW, where in the hell do guys with names like "Peevey" come from anyway??

[Caipirabob]

The obvious prediction: Davis knows he's dead and over the next few months we'll be watching him loot what is left of California's spent coffers in any way shape or form possible.

[Saundra Duffy]

This is an outrage beyond belief. Davis should go to jail over this appointment. The nerve!

[theophilusscribe]

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[snopercod]

Since 1985, Geesman has been the managing director of fixed income banking for RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. in San Francisco. He once served on TURN's board.

Let's see, we have Bryson - a co-founder of the NRDC - as the CEO of Edison, and now Geesman, a former TURN director in charge of the Cal-ISO, a supposedly "independent" organization.

Incest? Yes.

I want to remind everyone that under FERC rules, the Cal_ISO [as a Regional Transmission Organization] is required to be independent. But as we have seen, under Bush, FERC only enforces rules that are politically correct.

[eureka!]

"The husband of Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-South Pasadena, Peevey"

I guess it was a little too early to appoint Chad Condidit....

[Carry_Okie]

Let's see, we have Bryson - a co-founder of the NRDC - as the CEO of Edison, and now Geesman, a former TURN director in charge of the Cal-ISO, a supposedly "independent" organization.

LOL! Surprise me sum more!

Well DG?

[Dog Gone]

Well, to be honest, I don't know what to think about this. Superficially, it looks bad because of all the SCE incest.

But then I read where Peevey was ousted by Bryson, so there's no chance that they are buddies. And then he negotiated the deal with PG&E and was undercut by Davis who hired him.

You're far more conspiratorial than I am, so I'd expect you to say this was all scripted. In order for me to go along with that, I'd have to see where Peevey benefitted financially, since he was making many millions of dollars more as head of SCE than he will be in this silly PUC slot.

But something isn't right, because Davis and Peevey shouldn't be on the same page at all.

Do California rules require that PUC members be split along Party lines like FERC is? Is there a chance that Peevey is actually a good guy?

I don't know.

[Dengar01]

Gray Davis makes me sick

[Carry_Okie]

You're far more conspiratorial than I am, so I'd expect you to say this was all scripted.

Scripted? No.
Opportunistic? Yes.
The money loop? The real winners?

You expect that to be transparent?
After what we saw at Enron?

Are there such "winners"?
Davis needs money. Why wouldn't there be?

[Robert357]

Peevy's appointment was one of two Davis made Tuesday. He also appointed John L. Geesman to the board of the Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state power grid.

Since 1985, Geesman has been the managing director of fixed income banking for RBC Dain Rauscher Inc. in San Francisco. He once served on TURN's board.

OK CPUC gets a former PG&E Executive and ISO gets a investment banker.....I wonder who wants to try to put a good foot forward with the investment banking community on power bonds. I wonder what kind of other appointments are in the works? I wonder if there will even be some statements about California always paying its lawful debts and never trying to avoid that. I think the power bond pressure is on!

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Carry_Okie Are you thinking that Peevey and Geesman are contributing to Davis campaign heavily and are being rewarded by these appointments?

Or is he responding to pressure from potential Bond buyers and placing people that they suggest on these key boards as I guess Robert357 is suggesting! Obviously there is some kind of political calculus going on!

[Carry_Okie]

Carry_Okie Are you thinking that Peevey and Geesman are contributing to Davis campaign heavily and are being rewarded by these appointments?

No. That's too obvious even for Grubbinerr Goofblob. I am musing that perhaps someone has something to gain by having Peevey and Geesman there and that whatever substantive compensation these folks derive is probably ensconsed on Grand Cayman.

Or is he responding to pressure from potential Bond buyers and placing people that they suggest on these key boards as I guess Robert357 is suggesting! Obviously there is some kind of political calculus going on!

There never isn't, in the case of Gray Davis. Think of the Third Whirled debt game. Guaranteed debt at high prices. The traders make out. The underwriters make out. Even if there is a default they just roll it over and start again at higher rates, and perhaps flushing some complicit and bag-holding dependent suckers' money while the traders and Wall Street biggies "magically" escape (CalPERS comes to mind as a complicit chump). The underlying premise is that Davis doesn't do anything that isn't for campaign money. He has a LOT of it. Why should such a glaring "incompetent" get that kind of funding if he couldn't deliver, if only by "virtue" of the predictability of his idiotic behavior?

Davis is the total control freak. Everything he has done, without exception (as DG reminded us the other day), has cost us more than if he had just left things alone. It is impossible (in my opinion) for a complete incompetent to screw up that often without being right at least occasionally (constructive errors). That extra money went somewhere and it wasn't the utilities (whose value is in being able to collect the bills at the penalty of cutting the power). It is entirely possible that Wall Street is more than willing to sacrifice SCE for their (Davis & Bryson, et al.) complicit role in making them money in bonds at the expense of unwitting shareholders. That would fit Bryson's historic MO quite nicely. Certainly he is no fool. How much would the necessary sacrificial SCE grub stake cost to get Bryson in there to do his bit compared to the cash made on natural gas sales and debt service on prices inflated by Davis carefully calculated contract trades? How cheap will SCE be to buy and then "reorganize," then to collect on those long-term contracts? Looks like a cheap "loss," doesn't it?