Free Republic

<p>Time may be running out for a Florida power company which has much-delayed plans to build a major power plant on the border of Rio Linda and Elverta in northern Sacramento County.</p> <p>FPL Energy has switched strategies on its air-pollution control efforts and now plans to focus on a time-consuming and potentially groundbreaking plan to offset the smog its plant would cause, company and air officials say.</p>

The hottest day of 2002 -- so far -- had Northern Californians flipping on the AC as the state issued its second low-power alert of the year Wednesday. Oakland hit 87 degrees, besting the record high of 86 set six years ago, while the Central Valley from Red Bluff to Fresno sizzled under uniform triple-digit heat. Livermore and Concord were the only two Bay Area communities joining that club, hitting 101 and 100 degrees respectively. The first heat wave of '02 sent power use surging above 40,000 megawatts for the first time this year, according to the California Independent...

WASHINGTON – Targeting controversial power-plant projects near Mexicali, three California lawmakers launched a bipartisan effort yesterday to ban exports of natural gas to plants on the Mexican side of the border that fail to meet regional U.S. air-quality standards. The two plants being built about four miles south of the border near Mexicali would be fueled by natural gas from the United States. Legislation introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and California Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer would apply to plants within 50 miles of the border that start operating after Dec. 31, 2001. The lawmakers...

ones Murphy might not have noticed what his colleagues at the Williams Companies were doing if they had not been gloating.Mr. Murphy, previously a Wall Street executive, had recently been hired as the director of emerging products at Williams's headquarters in Tulsa, Okla., to help manage its trading risks. He was on the company's trading floor when he heard a commotion at the desk of Blake Herndon, director of risk management."I went over to ask what was going on," Mr. Murphy recalled of that day in December 2000. "Blake laughed and said they were going to corner the market...

<p>Is a palace coup under way at the California Public Utilities Commission?</p> <p>Insiders sure think so.</p> <p>All eyes these days are on Michael Peevey, a former Southern California Edison president who was appointed by Gov. Gray Davis in March to oversee his past employer (as well as PG&E, Pacific Bell and other such entities).</p>

<p>Governor Gray Davis today signed an Executive Order leading to the renewal of a popular "20/20" energy conservation program that will allow customers of the state's three largest utilities to cut 20 percent off their electricity bills this summer and fall.</p>

<p>HOUSTON, May 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Reliant Resources, Inc. (NYSE: RRI), in responding today to a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) request for information about roundtrip trades in the Western Systems Coordinating Council for the purpose of increasing volume in 2000-2001, said that among transactions previously disclosed was a single roundtrip trade of an electricity product in that region and time period. This is the sole transaction that Reliant has identified to date that is responsive to the Commission's investigation.</p>

<p>Sacramento -- An appeals court on Wednesday severely restricted the state's ability to spend money -- including financing for schools -- if the governor has not signed a new budget by the July 1 deadline.</p> <p>The California Court of Appeal in Los Angeles also said state workers could be paid only the federal minimum wage if the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis fail to come up with a budget when the new fiscal year begins.</p>

SAN FRANCISCO, May 29 (Reuters) - Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (NYSE:PCG - News) has challenged an order by state regulators needed for California to launch an $11.1 billion bond issue to help recoup the cost of the state's emergency power purchases last year. The challenge, made late on Tuesday by the PG&E Corp. subsidiary, California's biggest utility, could delay the bond issue, one of the largest municipal bond sales ever, credit analysts said. While state Treasurer Phil Angelides has not set a schedule for any bond deal, he recently told investors he would likely issue a timetable sometime...

Reliant Responds to FERC's Industry-Wide Questionnaire About Alleged Manipulation of California Electricity Market HOUSTON, May 22, 2002 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Reliant Resources, Inc. today submitted its response to the U. S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's request for information related to the trading practices described in a series of Enron memos released earlier this month.The Reliant submission denies that the company engaged in trading practices comparable to the practices detailed in the Enron memos during the period 2000-2001. For certain types of transactions the submission also seeks to explain the basic market structure that existed in California at the time,...

<p>Dearborn, Michigan, May 24 (Bloomberg) -- CMS Energy Corp., Michigan's largest utility owner, said Chief Executive Officer William T. McCormick Jr. resigned after the company disclosed $5.2 billion of revenue from sham electricity trades.</p> <p>CMS financial statements will be revised for 2000 and 2001 to remove revenue from ``round-trip'' trades that are being investigated by regulators, company executives said. Board member Kenneth Whipple, a 67-year-old former Ford Motor Co. executive, will replace McCormick, 57, until a permanent successor is hired.</p>

<p>Sacramento, California, May 23 (Bloomberg) -- California Governor Gray Davis renewed his demand that federal energy regulators order power companies to refund $8.9 billion to the state, citing recent disclosures of market manipulation.</p> <p>Davis told Federal Energy Regulator Commission Chairman Pat Wood in a letter that Enron Corp. memos prove the market was manipulated in 2000 and 2001 at the expense of consumers. Enron admitted creating fake congestion on transmission lines and other trading methods during a period when prices skyrocketed.</p>

(Adds Entergy-Koch denial) By Chris Baltimore WASHINGTON, May 22 (Reuters) - Federal energy regulators on Wednesday widened a probe of California's power crisis to include sham natural gas trades, as six large energy firms announced they did not use Enron Corp's now-infamous schemes to boost profits. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now examining bankrupt Enron's role in the soaring electricity prices that led to California blackouts, as well as a variety of questionable trading schemes for power and natural gas that may have been used by more than a 100 other firms. In a separate development,...

<p>Proclaiming their innocence, California's major power generators on Wednesday outlined for federal regulators some of the ways that plant owners profited from complex twists and turns in the state's electricity markets.</p> <p>Duke, Dynegy, Mirant, Reliant and Williams acknowledged their behavior shared some traits with the trading tricks detailed in Enron Corp. memos. All stressed they followed rules and did nothing wrong.</p>

<p>Operators of California's electric grid played market games in an effort to counter those being played by generators, and consumers were the losers, state Sen. Joe Dunn said Tuesday.</p> <p>The state Independent System Operator said it would investigate the Santa Ana Democrat's charges, and a spokesman for the state's power buying agency said it was concerned that the ISO had behaved improperly.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO -- Determined to avoid blackouts, California's own electricity grid managers ordered power they didn't need and forced the state to pay top dollar for excess energy that was sold later at a loss, according to the head of the Legislature's probe into energy market price fixing.</p>

<p>Washington, May 21 (Bloomberg) -- Dynegy Inc., Duke Energy Corp. and other companies that sold power in the western U.S. in 2000 and 2001 must report their ``round-trip'' energy trades by May 31, U.S. energy regulators ordered.</p> <p>The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said previous transaction data was reported inconsistently and can't be used to identify such trades, which are defined as the simultaneous purchase and sale of the same amount of a commodity with the same trading partner.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON - They've been called ``the smoking gun'': internal Enron memos detailing how the company created false congestion on transmission lines and performed other tricks to manipulate California's electricity market.</p> <p>But when the smoke finally clears, the memos describing schemes with names like ``Death Star'' probably will not be the evidence the state has long sought to secure $8.9 billion in refunds and invalidate high-priced energy contracts, according to key players and industry experts.</p>

<p>HAYWARD - Plans to begin construction on a new power plant in Hayward this summer have been changed.</p> <p>Work was to begin this summer, but the plant now may not be built at all.</p> <p>Calpine's planned 600-megawatt Russell City Energy Center will not be up for approval by the California Energy Commission until August at the earliest.</p>

<p>With power plant proposals languishing statewide, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District may become the latest developer to pull the plug, abandoning plans for a 1,000-megawatt gas-burning plant beside the long-closed Rancho Seco.</p> <p>The Cosumnes Power Plant, which once seemed a sure thing, now has only a 50 percent to 75 percent chance of going forward, several district directors said.</p>