April is the cruelest month: California's 1996 electricity deregulation law promised -lower rates

The San Francisco Chronicle ^ | Monday, April 1, 2002 | David Lazarus

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

California's 1996 electricity deregulation law promised that by April 1, 2002 -- this very day -- your power bill would be 20 percent lower.

This is not an April Fools' joke. Anything but.

The harsh reality is that average power rates went up about 40 percent last year, the state's biggest utility went bankrupt, and it is unclear where we're going to get our juice by the end of the year.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

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[Carry_Okie]

You are as reliable as ever sir.

[Russell Scott]

The lie continues. It was anything but deregulation. It was reregulation, just like this phony campiagn finance bill. I'm glad we only have to endure satan's lunatic world a little longer. I so look forward to this earth when it is eternally under the control of people once again in God's image and likeness of perfection, no more to be plagued by sin and all its consequences.

[quimby]

The lie continues. It was anything but deregulation. It was reregulation, just like this phony campiagn finance bill.

Bump

[snopercod]

The People's Republic of Kalistan Five Year Energy Plan

The government declares that electricity in Kali is too expensive, and says that their plan will make electricity 20% cheaper in five years.

The members of the press cheer and name the plan "deregulation".

The plan fails, as it was destined from the first.

The government demands emergency powers to deal with the mess.

The press blame "the failure of the free market".

[randita]

The state in turn entered the energy business and quickly found itself saddled with $43 billion in long-term contracts at prices way above current market rates.

This statement is laughable. Kind of like a girl having unprotected sex and quickly finding herself "saddled" with pregnancy, as if she had nothing to do with it.

[Robert357]

Let's see if I understood, Deregulation was a cruel hoax, the House Rabbit Society is a good thing, and I need to use a clorine bleach based product to clean the germs out of my office.

I hope that either reporter David Lazarus or his editor soon get back on their correct dosage of medication.

Seriously, the reasons things didn't work out as planned has a lot more to do with faulty "deregulation," i.e. saying deregulation, but keeping utilities from doing what they needed to do to be deregulated. I guess it is easier to say that a government agency will let the market rule a sector of the economy, than for the government agency to really let go. Gosh, sort of sounds like a love story gone wrong. Maybe a Hollywood movie....no way its not liberal enough.

[Grampa Dave]

Good find, and it is hard to believe that a Chronicle writer would actually put this in an article, and then his editor would allow it to be published.

As we all know painfully well, runaway wholesale power prices and a cap on retail rates caused financial devastation for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison.

Of course this probably the first step on blaming the entire crisis on GW and Dick Cheney and to remove Fascist Davis from any fallout of what he did before and during the deregging train wreck!