Posted on 04/20/2003 2:56:51 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:42:20 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Federal prosecutors conducting a criminal probe of California's energy crisis have shifted their investigation away from Enron and onto the company's Houston neighbor, Reliant Resources Inc., according to sources.
Documents released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission depict Reliant traders and plant operators engaging in a range of deceptive practices to drive up energy prices during the crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
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How a lone trader roiled energy market -- From a sun-splashed oceanfront apartment in Long Beach, a natural gas trader named Mary Kathleen Zanaboni authored what federal regulators say was a pivotal chapter in California's energy crisis. With a fast computer, three telephone lines, a television tuned to weather reports and a steady supply of coffee, Zanaboni bought and sold natural gas swiftly and aggressively. Regulators call it "churning" and contend that she single-handedly cost households and businesses nearly $3 billion in the winter of 2000-01. Nancy Rivera Brooks in the Los Angeles Times -- 4/20/03
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Not unless it involves communication between companies. Then it's collusion.
The real market manipulation was what created the shortage of generating capacity that made these games even possible. It took twenty years to accomplish and when "deregulation" was initiated it merely turned into the payoff. TURN, the Sierra Club, and the NRDC are the key players who funded and organized the NIMBY groups that prevented plant construction. Bryson was there all the way along. So far, I have not found detailed information re what Gray Davis was doing after he left Jerry Brown's Administration and before he became Controller besides holding office as an assemblyman.
Collusion? Is that what they call one company dealing with another these days?
Aside: I am feeling like a murderer today. I had to cut down a 60-year-old hardwood tree to clear a window to the Dish Network satellite at 119 degrees which carries Fox News Channel.
It was a beautiful tree, and I plan to haul it (in pieces) to the local sawmill. That way I can build a bookshelf out of it in a couple years, and it will be remembered always...
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