Posted on 08/30/2002 5:22:41 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 08/30/2002 8:30:46 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]
California's effort to slash billions from $40 billion in long-term electricity contracts shifts gears today, as federal regulators end informal settlement talks and begin a litigation process to resolve the dispute.
The bottom line for state consumers, say experts, is that relief from California's commitment to expensive power purchases for the next 20 years is now likely to take longer, if it comes at all.
Despite reporting progress yesterday toward revised agreements, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission administrative judge overseeing the case said he would take the first formal steps in a regulatory trial today.
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You will. Keep making babies out there, and keep putting roadblocks to new power plants in place to keep up with rising demand.
WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
I have been an expert witness in litigation, mediation etc. I have also been involved with a number of FERC proceedings. Judge Wagner will take the opportunity from the bench to squeeze both sides. I have seen it happen before, and it is really not pleasant. As Judge he can look you in the eyes and say that if you don't back down on a posiition he will make a finding in the complete opposite direction and you will be up the creek. Your attorney will tell him that he has the power. At that point he can put lots and lots of pressure on you.
By starting judical proceedings, he has told the parties that he is frustrated and he is going to force a solution, unless they get their act togher. Each day during the hearing he will questions some of the parties point out the weakness in their arguments and tell them the range of his findings on some of the issues. Then he will ask if they really don't want to just get together and settle this.
Just to remind the Sheeple!
I looked at the SDTU site, and there was no reference anywhere to being owned by anybody other than "Copley Press Inc.", who own a bunch of small-town papers.
Joe, is this your rogue moderator at work again?
By signing those contracts, they signified that the price was reasonable to them at the time.
Then of course, there is the U.S. Constitution, which states:
No State shall...pass any...Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts...
In law, the moment of temptation is the moment of choice, when a judge realizes that in the case before him his strongly held view of justice, his political and moral imperative, is not embodied in a statute or in any provision of the Constitution. He must then chose between his version of justice and abiding by the American form of government. Yet the desire to do justice, whose nature seems to him obvious, is compelling, while the concept of constitutional process is abstract, rather arid, and the abstinence it counsels unsatisfying. To give in to temptation this one time, solves an urgent human problem, and a faint crack appears in the American foundation. A judge has begun to rule where a legislature should.--Robert H. Bork, The Tempting of America - The Political Seduction of the Law, 1990
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