[Dog Gone]

I have wasted far too many electrons proving that Steve Peace hijacked Brulte's bill, changed it, and herded it through the legislature. It is indisputable.

The only reason to deny that and to keep associating Brulte's name with it exclusively is an anti-GOP agenda.

[Carry_Okie]

Agreed. Posted facts with sources don't seem to change the contention.

I am nervous about trying deregulation of power pricing again without pumping up the supply side first with a major cut in regulatory snags to new plant and pipeline construction.

[lewislynn]

It is indisputable

Really?

1/30/01 Page B7 Editorials
Daniel Weintraub The Sacramento Bee

Deregulation bill author has dodged the bullet

Jim Brulte is hard to miss. As leader of the Republicans in the state Senate and a close California adviser to President Bush, Brulte is one of the Legislature's most visible members, in more ways than one. With a massive physique that might qualify him for a spot on the offensive line of a National Football League team, Brulte doesn't exactly slink his way through the Capitol.

But somehow he has escaped serious scrutiny for his role in shaping the bill now widely considered the state's biggest self-inflicted wound of the last decade, if not the century. Brulte was the author of the 1996 law that restructured California's electricity industry.

The senator from Rancho Cucamonga doesn't like to talk much about the bill that bears his name. But back then he was a proud father beaming over his new baby.

"This is a bill that I think will go down in the history books as one of the most far-reaching and forward-thinking pieces of legislation," Brulte said as the measure cleared the Assembly floor in August 1996.

Well, Brulte's bill is making the history books. But not in a chapter titled "Forward Thinking." Instead, the law has been blamed by many for unleashing the forces that ruined California's electricity industry and brought consumers, and the state, to their knees: rolling blackouts, price spikes and perhaps a load of debt as far as the eye can see.

The outcome has all but ended the political career of another legislator, Sen. Steve Peace of San Diego County. Peace, who was chairman of the Assembly-Senate conference committee that crafted the bill, has become known as the architect of electricity = deregulation. He has dropped plans to run for statewide office and is hardly involved, at least in public, as the Legislature grapples with the crisis.

But there's Brulte, still in the thick of things. As Republican leader, he has been one of four legislators working closely with Gov. Gray Davis to hammer out a rescue plan. Davis is so enamored of Brulte's help that the governor's press secretary said the other day he'd like to outfit the lawmaker with a Superman costume.

Brulte is unapologetic. Although he once proclaimed AB 1890 one for the history books, he now says his bill was overrated. By the time the Legislature got into the act, he says, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) had already voted to deregulate electricity. The governor at the time - Pete Wilson - threatened to veto any bill that more than tinkered with the PUC's plan. Brulte provided a copy of a letter Wilson wrote to federal regulators that backs up this claim.

"The Wilson administration was at the table with us the entire time, and they let us know the parameters under which we could operate," Brulte said in an interview. "We knew exactly what we could put in and what we could not. We could not deal with any structural changes to the PUC order."

Brulte, though, didn't exactly march into Wilson's office and demand more leeway. He and the other members of the conference committee made a few changes to the PUC plan, winning the support of environmentalists and labor unions, and neutrality, rather than opposition, from several consumer groups. Then they sent it on its way.

"It was absolutely the right thing to do," Brulte said. "Deregulation was a fait accompli. It was just a question of mechanics."

The problems, in Brulte's view, came after his bill was signed into law. California's economy, and its demand for energy, grew faster than legislators expected. A consumer group, meanwhile, qualified an initiative for the 1998 ballot that threatened to repeal much of the new law. The uncertainty kept investors from pushing new power plants until the measure, Proposition 9, was defeated.

The energy shortage was compounded by two PUC decisions not envisioned by lawmakers, he said. One came when the commission encouraged the old monopoly utilities to sell all but their nuclear and hydroelectric power plants. The other was when the PUC held religiously to its view that the utilities should not buy power under long-term contracts as a hedge against future price increases. This lethal mix of policies left the utilities, and consumers, far too vulnerable to the private companies that bought the power plants and quickly learned how to play the market to their advantage.

Brulte concedes that, in hindsight, perhaps the Legislature should have intervened to fix the PUC's mistakes.

"Everyone in the Legislature wanted to believe that the PUC commissioners, these five experts appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate, knew more about the utilities and the electricity markets than we did," he said. "In retrospect, it's kind of clear in some cases they didn't. In many cases they didn't."

So there's Brulte's story: The governor made him do it. Projections were wrong. The experts screwed up. All these things are true. But Brulte is supposed to be the smartest Republican in Sacramento. Smart people ask questions. Now he's got another chance. Let's hope this time he does more than simply go with the = flow.

Daniel Weintraub's column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. He can be reached at (916) 321-1914 or at = dweintraub@sacbee.com.

Funny, I didn't see one mention of being "hijacked" or "herded" by anyone but Pete Wilson and his appointee's.