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Trust And Antitrust
The New York Times, 06/24/01 Looking at E-Business From Both Sides Now The New York Times, 06/24/01 Getting Serious About Earth-Friendly Energy Los Angeles Times, 06/24/01 ENERGY CRUNCH / Power players lay blame / Deregulation creators defend their actions The San Francisco Chronicle, 06/24/01 USA: California power refund talks begin Monday at FERC. Reuters English News Service, 06/24/01 PGE CRITICIZES ELECTRICITY PRICE LIMITS Portland Oregonian, 06/24/01 India: Calcutta HC rejects EMC plea Business Line (The Hindu), 06/24/01 India: DPC lenders unhappy with S&W report Business Line (The Hindu), 06/23/01 Enron CEO gets pie in face Press Trust of India Limited, 06/23/01 POWER POLLUTION NO LAUGHING MATTER South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 06/23/01 San Francisco Tourists Just Roll with the Outages Contra Costa Times - Walnut Creek, California, 06/23/01 El Paso Awaits Decision as Generators Prepare to Face Lawsuits Bloomberg, 06/23/01 Alleged Power Overcharges May Be Less Than Calif Argues Dow Jones Energy Service, 06/22/01 Editorial Desk; Section 4 Reckonings Trust And Antitrust By PAUL KRUGMAN 06/24/2001 The New York Times Page 13, Column 1 c. 2001 New York Times Company When the European Commission indicated it was likely to block the proposed merger between General Electric and Honeywell, American politicians from George W. Bush on down cried foul, with some alleging that the decision was politically motivated. They're almost certainly wrong about that, but it is true that the E.C.'s case against the merger is far from watertight. Mario Monti, Europe's competition referee, may have made a bad call on this play. Nonetheless, our politicians should lower their voices. Mr. Monti is one of the good guys in today's global economy. He should not be made the target of attempts at political intimidation. To put the G.E.-Honeywell affair in context, you need to realize that this case is a triple switcheroo: it contradicts not one but three pieces of conventional wisdom. First, the conventional view is that globalization weakens governments, because it forces them to compete for private investment. Broadly speaking, this view is right. (Conventional wisdom usually is.) There are, however, exceptions to the rule, and antitrust policy is one of those exceptions. In today's world, no company can compete effectively unless it can operate freely on both sides of the Atlantic -- which it can do only with a green light from antitrust authorities in both the United States and Europe. The result is that instead of eroding the power of those authorities, globalization has extended their reach: American regulators can block European mergers, and vice versa. Second, this case inverts traditional roles. Until recently, only the U.S. seemed to take antitrust policy seriously. Europeans might have U.S.-style legislation on the books, but they often seemed to feel that cartels, like extramarital affairs, were nothing to worry about as long as the participants were discreet -- and they were scornful toward puritanical Americans who insisted on enforcing the letter of the law. Lately, however, Europe has gotten serious about antitrust, giving the competition commissioner broad powers to block mergers and investigate allegations of anticompetitive behavior. Mr. Monti, an American-trained university professor who assumed that office in 1999, has used those powers aggressively. General Electric and Honeywell are by no means the first companies to find Mr. Monti blocking what they thought was a done deal. Was Mr. Monti right to block this particular deal? It's a complicated issue. Let's just say that the case against this merger is similar to the case for breaking up Microsoft, though it seems a lot weaker. On the other hand, you don't need as strong an argument to block a merger as you do to break up a going concern. We're in a gray area, with the precise shade of gray a matter of opinion. Even if you disagree with Mr. Monti's opinion, however, his sincerity is not in doubt. The best answer to those who claim that this is really a protectionist ploy is Mr. Monti's track record: he has repeatedly shown himself willing to oppose the demands of powerful European interest groups. Why would he suddenly become a tool of protectionists? And that leads us to the third switcheroo. Europeans are accustomed to cozy cohabitation between politicians and businessmen; Americans tend to insist on at least the appearance of an arms-length relationship. But just at the moment when the Europeans have placed competition policy in the hands of a sternly upright professor, the United States has acquired an administration that seems oblivious to normal concerns about conflict of interest. It's not yet clear whether the Bush administration really is a government of, by and for big corporations to an extent not seen since Warren G. Harding was president, or whether it just looks that way. But the stories keep accumulating. Intel's chief lobbyist says that his highly inappropriate meetings with Karl Rove were ''quite useful'' to its merger case -- and Mr. Rove didn't even get a slap on the wrist. According to the outgoing chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the head of Enron offered to support him at the White House if he changed his policy positions. And it took three months -- and a sharp prod from Jake Tapper at Salon -- before Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill honored his promise to sell his Alcoa stock. As a consumer, I'm not sure I trust these people to protect me from the market power of giant corporations. And so it's nice to know that Mr. Monti is out there, looking after my interests. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Money and Business/Financial Desk; Section 3 BOOK VALUE Looking at E-Business From Both Sides Now By FRED ANDREWS 06/24/2001 The New York Times Page 6, Column 1 c. 2001 New York Times Company BOOKS about e-business have proliferated over the last year. Undeterred by the dot-com crash and financial travails of many Internet companies, business publishers have turned to churning out an ever-widening array of guides to help well-established companies prosper on the Web. The books range from simplified manuals to weighty analyses of the dynamics of e-business ventures. Here are two examples at opposite ends of the spectrum: ''D2D: Dinosaur to Dynamo'' by David Stauffer (John Wiley & Sons, $27.95), and ''Place to Space: Migrating to E-Business Models'' by Peter Weill and Michael R. Vitale (Harvard Business School Press, $35). At first blush, ''D2D'' is a once-over-lightly account, a scissors-and-paste recycling of other books and the business press, duly footnoted, to be sure. The pages are salted with so many diverting lists, special boxes and eye-catching headlines (''Why the Web Can Be Farmer-Friendly'') that the main text is an annoying weave through an obstacle course. With short paragraphs and lots of space between lines, the book cried out to be skimmed. But Mr. Stauffer, who has written books about America Online and Cisco Systems and many articles explaining how companies have adapted to the Internet, has assembled a fascinating menagerie of 20 businesses that have taken to e-business with great success. His brief histories include the obligatory e-favorites -- Enron, General Electric, Charles Schwab -- as well as peers like Ford Motor and Bertelsmann. But he also tells you about Snap-on Inc., DoveBid industrial auctioneers, the Antevia Inc. relocation service and Powell's Books of Portland, Ore., a thriving ''independent'' whose 68,000-square-foot flagship is one of the nation's largest bookstores. Powell's began in 1970, buying lightly used textbooks for next to nothing and reselling them at substantial mark-ups. Now a $36 million business, Powell's has found its Web site ideal for matching a used, rare or out-of-print title from its enormous holdings with someone, somewhere, who wants to buy it. Unlike Amazon.com, its famous competitor, Powell's makes money online (and has done so from Day 1). Its annual sales volume of $232,000 per online employee is higher than Amazon's. And what happens to books that customers return to Amazon? Powell's buys them, at nearly 80 percent off the cover price. Further afield, Tesco, the huge supermarket chain in Britain, has become a leading Internet grocery by tying its Web delivery service to its local stores. Snap-on, of Kenosha, Wis., sells high-quality tools for auto mechanics through 6,000 franchisees who drive its distinctive white vans; the company solved its ''channel conflicts'' by paying franchisees for Internet sales as though they had made the sales themselves. DoveBid, an $80 million appraiser and auctioneer of used business and industrial equipment, has pioneered simultaneous live and Web auctions. Like a baseball scout who prefers the honesty of minor league ball, Mr. Stauffer pays these less prominent players refreshing respect. Though he commonly relies on second-hand material, he is scrupulous with footnotes and credits. His judgments are not bad, and in more than half the histories he adds his own interviewing. Each chapter opens with a capsule company profile and closes with ''Leader's Lessons,'' the author's observations. A final chapter on ''what it takes to make it'' is nothing out of the ordinary. Mr. Stauffer says the digital world requires a ''vocal and unflagging'' chief executive. He also says a company needs ''bricks and clicks that don't discriminate'' -- in other words, don't think of online and offline as separate markets. His other advice: provide added services and follow the rule that it's better ''to be fast than to be right.'' The book concludes with 60 offhand homilies on e-business success. No one will accuse ''D2D'' of being profound. But what's not to like about an all-star team that makes room for tiny Quality Transmission Service, a $400,000, six-employee operation in Tempe, Ariz.? Its founder, Bob Jones, built a shoestring Web site that has become a model for local businesses. His ''Ask Bob'' feature attracts 10 or 12 questions a day. The Web site has lured customers from 35 miles away (the shop's normal reach is 10 miles) and reliably brings in two or three new customers a week -- a 15 to 20 percent increase for Mr. Jones's business. ''PLACE TO SPACE,'' more academic than other e-biz books, offers as clear an explanation of the anatomy of e-business as one could expect. From extensive study, the authors have concluded that all e-business can be reduced to one or another of eight basic building blocks, which then combine into more complex companies, like atoms forming a molecule. Mr. Weill is director of the Center for Information Business Systems at M.I.T.; Mr. Vitale is dean and director of the Australian School of Management at Sydney. Their strength is not originality but the clarity and thoroughness of their analysis. Their eight building blocks, which they call ''atomic e-business models,'' are already part of the digital vocabulary. The array includes direct-to-customer sales (Amazon, for instance); full-service providers (GE Supply); shared infrastructure (reservation systems); virtual communities (Motley Fool); portals, auctions and aggregators (Yahoo and eBay), and content providers (AccuWeather and Morningstar). The book devotes a methodical chapter to each, dissecting what each way of doing e-business assumes, how it works, what holds it together. A tutorial follows on infrastructure, distribution channels and market segments. The authors cover core competencies, strategic objectives and sources of value. Eventually, this extensive learning is distilled into seven pages of tables, laying bare the logic of all eight models and enumerating, say, nine factors critical to a direct-to-customer business like Amazon's or three core competencies for running a virtual community like iVillage. Some readers may like the crisp schematics that accompany the text. Others may mistake the drawings for an attack plan for multiple-warhead nuclear missiles. The schematic of an Internet-based investment business has six big arrowheads on the left, three on the right, all menacing a big black rectangle, along with smaller arrows and dotted lines. No question, this book is homework. Thankfully, the authors leaven the abstract, didactic parts of their work with abundant examples from a half-dozen cogent case studies. Among the cases are Reuters, CDNow, GE Supply and, especially interesting, Lonely Planet, the Australian publisher of travel guides for vagabonds. From one lone title 30 years ago (''Across Asia on the Cheap''), Lonely Planet has prospered to about 600 titles, 400 employees and 65 million Australian dollars (about $34 million) in revenue for 2000. Its Web site draws three million daily hits, reflecting the attraction of the Thorn Tree chat room, where travelers keep in touch and exchange tips by posting 1,500 messages a day. Lonely Planet also offers global voice mail and CitySync, a digital download of guides to major cities. It has undertaken the ambitious job of converting all its guides, maps and detailed research to accessible digital form. Even on this solid base, e-business raises tough questions for Lonely Planet. How can it make money from the two million fans of its Web site? Should it try? How should it handle ''channel conflict'' and balance sales from the Internet with its traditional retailers' interests? As its rule of thumb, Lonely Planet looks for some assurance that it will get a 50 percent gross margin before embarking on a new guide. The authors ask whether e-business ideas are ever firm enough to meet that hurdle. And most intriguing, the authors write that Lonely Planet has ''a huge opportunity'' to reinvent the travel guide by customizing digital guides to a traveler's itinerary and tastes, with digital updates delivered along the way. THOUGH newly published, ''Place to Space'' is already dated. The authors refer to the ''partial'' fall of dot-coms but not to the later convulsions. The book continually describes (but does not necessarily praise) e-ventures long since laid low. What reader would suspect that Motley Fool just announced its second round of layoffs this year or that Hearst narrowly rescued iVillage from Nasdaq delisting? The book notes that in four months, Priceline.com signed up nearly 500,000 customers for its ultimately disastrous Web-based grocery service. ''The approach seems popular,'' the authors observe. Though every book risks obsolescence from events, their study gives little hint of the coming tempest. Reading ''Place to Space'' is like watching a video visit to the zoo without knowing that the lion, the walrus and most of the monkeys have died. The book's explanatory value still stands, but the dot-com massacre does raise questions about what some examples actually exemplify. Still, the book has endearing touches. At one point, the authors explain the remarkable success of Asian airlines in putting bickering aside and building Abacus, a joint computer reservation system. The decision to cooperate rather than compete, they say, ''was probably motivated by a combination of fear and greed.'' How often do you find candor like that? Photos Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Business; Financial Desk JAMES FLANIGAN Getting Serious About Earth-Friendly Energy JAMES FLANIGAN 06/24/2001 Los Angeles Times Home Edition C-1 Copyright 2001 / The Times Mirror Company The growing concern about global warming--even President Bush concedes the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions--promises a shift to nonpolluting energy sources and new attitudes toward environmental investment in industry in the years ahead. Change will be more gradual than dramatic, perhaps a 20% rise in use of wind and solar power to generate electricity and the beginnings of commercial use of fuel cells to drive cars and trucks by 2010. Nonpolluting, renewable energy will still make up less than 7% of total U.S. energy consumption 10 years hence, predicts the Energy Department. But trends will be established in this decade. Business will base investment on environmental concerns as never before. Reminders that the Earth's temperature will rise for the next 50 years no matter what we do now will bolster development of energy-efficient machines and industrial processes. The chemical firm DuPont Co., for example, aims to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases--carbon dioxide and methane--by 65% over this decade. Also by 2010, DuPont hopes to rely on renewable sources for 10% of its energy use. That 10% estimate may not sound heroic, but it's based on the expectation that renewable energy will be cost-competitive with oil, natural gas and coal, says Paul Tebo, DuPont's vice president for environmental and health policies. "It's important that renewables become cost-competitive because investing in them if they're uneconomic creates other problems," Tebo says. Where does the business of renewable energy stand today? Wind power is attracting a lot of investment and will grow rapidly in the next few years. Solar power now boasts $2.7 billion in annual sales worldwide; only 25% of those sales, however, are in the U.S. Fuel-cell development is intense, with every major automotive company backing research and testing pilot projects for on-board power plants in which hydrogen energy drives the car and most of the exhaust is clean water. By 2008, vehicles propelled by fuel cells will be used by early adopters, as hybrid cars are today, says Dan Sperling, head of the Institute for Transportation Studies at UC Davis, a major center of fuel-cell research. More than $1.5 billion will be invested this year in projects to generate electricity from wind power, says Randy Swisher of the American Wind Power Assn. in Washington. That's double the previous highest investment total. Investment is growing because wind power has become efficient. A single windmill generator today is capable of doing the work of 10 windmills of the 1970s, when wind-power experiments began. Wind generation can deliver electricity at 3 cents to 6 cents a kilowatt-hour, promising a $15 to $30 electric bill for the average home that uses 500 kilowatt-hours per month. In addition, wind-power projects are being encouraged by a federal tax credit of 1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour to the investing companies. FPL Energy, a subsidiary of Florida's FPL Group, and Enron Wind Corp., a subsidiary of Enron Corp., are the largest companies in wind generation. But mostly it is a business of small firms and investment partnerships. Zilkha Renewable Energy, a privately held Houston firm, will be involved in $100 million worth of wind-power projects this year in Iowa, Pennsylvania, California and Britain, often in partnership with Denmark's EnXco Inc. Denmark gets 15% of its electricity from wind power, a typical percentage for European countries, which are more environmentally conscious than the U.S. Solar energy is still comparatively expensive, producing electricity from photovoltaic cells at 20 cents to 30 cents a kilowatt-hour. That would equate to monthly electric bills of $100 to $150 for the average home. Solar energy can be produced more cheaply by vast solar arrays in desert areas. This method, called thermal, can produce power at 10 cents a kilowatt-hour today, says Avi Brenmiller, chairman of Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli firm that built a giant solar thermal plant in California's Mojave Desert. An irony is that Israel, a largely desert country, does not use a lot of solar power to date--mostly because conventional fossil-fuel power has been cheaper, Brenmiller says. Brenmiller looks for new solar projects to be launched in the U.S. and abroad as a result of uncertain energy prices and availability. The main cost of solar energy is the capital needed to build panels of solar cells on roofs of homes and buildings and on farms to run irrigation. "After the plant is built, the cost of fuel--the sunlight--is essentially zero," observes Marwan Masri, director of renewable energy for the California Energy Commission. State and federal grants of up to half the capital cost encourage solar projects. Masri is working with home builders to install solar cells in all homes in new subdivisions, so the cost of providing energy can be amortized over 30 years along with the home mortgages. Meanwhile, solar energy powers buildings, traffic lights and irrigation projects around the world, with Japan and Germany using more solar energy than the U.S. BP Solar, a division of BP; Kyocera Corp. of Japan; and Siemens of Germany, which owns the former Westinghouse Electric Corp. in the U.S., are global leaders in solar. But the technology of solar cells, akin to that of semiconductors, is still under development. Small firms, such as Evergreen Solar Inc. of Marlboro, Mass., and AstroPower Inc. of Newark, Del., are working on cheaper and more effective ways to make solar cells, reports analyst James LoGerfo of Banc of America Securities. In fuel cells, Xcellsis, a joint venture of DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Co. and Ballard Power Systems Inc., has developed fuel-cell engines based on methanol and gasoline for demonstration models being tested in Germany and the U.S. Fuel cells that derive hydrogen from gasoline, methanol or natural gas are less environmentally ideal than improved models that will appear later in the decade. But, clearly, new industries that will change the way the world lives are taking their first big steps. And concerns about global warming that are giving these industries a push today won't diminish in the years ahead. Climate change that will add 2.5 to 10 degrees to the Earth's temperature over the next 50 years is already assured because of heat from past emissions that is stored in the world's oceans, reports UC Irvine Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone, a renowned atmospheric scientist, who headed a recent study of global warming for President Bush. As temperatures mount, so will sentiment and pressure for new thinking on energy, environment and the world economy. * James Flanigan can be reached at jim.flanigan@latimes.com. PHOTO: More than $1.5 billion is expected to be invested this year in wind-power projects.; ; PHOTOGRAPHER: Zilkha Renewable Energy Co.; PHOTO: Zilkha Renewable Energy of Houston is at work on this wind-power project in California's Altamont Pass area.; ; PHOTOGRAPHER: Zilkha Renewable Energy Co. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. NEWS ENERGY CRUNCH / Power players lay blame / Deregulation creators defend their actions Robert Salladay Chronicle Sacramento Bureau 06/24/2001 The San Francisco Chronicle FINAL A.1 (Copyright 2001) Five years after dismantling California's energy markets, former Gov. Pete Wilson says he's proud of his role in deregulation and is "stunned and outraged" that his successor tries to pin the blame on him. Former state Senate President pro tem Bill Lockyer, now the state attorney general, is both contrite and vengeful, recently saying he wanted to put a powerful energy executive -- and friend of President Bush -- in prison with an amorous cellmate named Spike. Former Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle, presently a lobbyist, now forwards e-mail jokes to fellow Republicans with Davis re-election slogans, including: "Davis in 2002: Your bridge to the 18th century." These were the leaders who brought deregulation to California. As they engage in deflections and defenses one year after the state plunged into crisis, their comments also highlight a newer debate over unintended consequences, the role of the federal government in making things worse, and the neglectfulness of subsequent politicians. For his part, Wilson has become increasingly angry at the Davis administration's "offensive and unfair" claims that Wilson and the Legislature got the state into this mess. "I'm afraid they have reached the conclusion that the response has been too little, too late to avoid what will be hundreds of hours of blackouts, and that they better find a way to blame somebody else," Wilson said. Davis, he said, has blamed "the new administration in Washington, the old administration in Sacramento, power providers. It's interesting, because there was not a peep out of the lieutenant governor (Davis) at the time during what I thought was a fairly active and public debate. He was hardly without a voice, but he certainly was without comment." Wilson said Davis' performance over the past year called into question Davis' 1998 campaign slogan. "I used to laugh when he talked about being the best-trained, best-prepared candidate in history," Wilson said. "But what the hell." DEREGULATION BILL A tiny legislative committee that was dominated by state Sen. Steve Peace, D-El Cajon, and then Assemblyman James Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga, wrote the deregulation bill in 1996. Corporate lobbyists and utilities also had tremendous sway over the legislation. Pringle, Lockyer and Wilson steered the legislation their way. The bill was a reaction to movements under way at the California Public Utilities Commission and in the federal government. The bill essentially unbundled the big utilities' monopoly over power, separating control of selling, marketing and producing energy. It also was supposed to cut rates 10 percent and pay utilities hundreds of millions of dollars for investments they'd made in nuclear power and other energy plants. Wilson said Davis should, in fact, be grateful that the 1996 deregulation bill encouraged power companies to expand into California. He contends that without the measure, the state would be faced with a regulated market and 10,000 fewer megawatts of power -- and more blackouts. DAVIS' COMPLAINTS Davis has continually said that California failed to build power plants in the 12 years before his administration. In truth, seven smaller power plants were built during Wilson's eight years, and deregulation started the process on a host of others that are now being approved more quickly by the Davis administration. "We wanted to entice investors," Wilson said. "You can't do that if they're not allowed to compete." Wilson acknowledges that the state misread exactly how quickly California would grow. During the high-tech boom, Silicon Valley built acres of "server farms" to supply the Internet that accounted for a large amount of the increase in new power usage in California. Peace has point-blank blamed executives at Cisco Systems. He has said they should be thrown in jail for simultaneously supplying the server-farm boom and opposing the building of a power plant in Santa Clara County. Cisco opposed the 600-megawatt plant, it said, to protect the health and welfare of its employees nearby. Wilson doesn't go as far as Peace in wanting to jail people. And he's not willing to accuse out-of-state generators of price-gouging, in part because "blanket condemnation" may scare away further investment in California -- and it ignores that some municipal utilities in California charge high prices as well. "If they find that people have in fact manipulated the market," Wilson said, "then they ought to come down hard on them." LOCKYER'S HARDER LINE As attorney general, Lockyer has opened an investigation into whether power companies have conspired to push up electricity prices and gouge consumers. Unlike Peace and Wilson, Lockyer is unwilling to defend the 1996 legislation and deregulation. "If I could repeal it and start all over again, I think that I would," he said. But even Lockyer acknowledges that the Legislature needed to do something in 1996. That's because it appeared inevitable that the utilities and corporate interests would get some form of deregulation through the state PUC and the federal government, which had already opened up the natural gas market. "Our energy experts thought the PUC was doing it in a way that was overly friendly to big business and would have ended up having residential customers subsidizing big business," Lockyer said. "The efforts were made to try to figure out how to make the market competitive without tilting toward big business." The real killer in deregulation, Lockyer contends, is that neither the Legislature (himself included) nor the governor paid enough attention to the supply end. That allowed a handful of firms to have near-total control over power output, Lockyer said. Peace has called this the "domestic equivalent of OPEC in the West." Lockyer has been busy demonizing power firms as well. He still faces criticism for telling the Wall Street Journal his plans for Kenneth Lay, chairman of the Texas energy trader Enron Corp.: "I'd love to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey.' " Lockyer, who told The Chronicle he was directing his comments to the East Coast financial establishment, toned down a bit in a more recent interview. "The system works well. It doesn't work when there is illegal activity and a handful of companies that control the whole market," Lockyer said. And then there is Pringle, who generally has escaped questioning for his role in getting the 1996 measure passed. Pringle said he had little impact on the legislation, relying instead on Brulte. But he puts some blame on consumer groups that offered Proposition 9 in 1998, which set out to roll back much of the deregulation measure. Wilson has charts from the state energy commission showing the application to build plants spiked up after the measure was defeated. "At the most critical moment," Pringle said, "when we were trying to suck development into the state, you had trepidation." Wilson, Lockyer and Pringle have been relatively silent on the matter when compared with Peace. Peace has been waging his own relentless war, both defending the 1996 legislation and accusing the federal government of "creating a flawed national model of electricity deregulation and then (failing) to confront the consequences." The real culprit is far more complicated than just Proposition 9, Peace contended in a recent letter to Bush. The state PUC, he said, ordered utilities in the early 1990s to build more plants, but the utilities got federal regulators to overrule the order. Among other things, he said, the federal government uncritically adopted a flawed plan separating the West's transmission system from the generation of electricity. That allows generators to extort the grid operator by threatening to withhold power, he added. Pringle said he can't even attempt to get as detailed as Peace when it comes to explaining what went wrong. "Everyone has a degree in which they need to stand up, but the people in charge today are in charge of fixing it," Pringle said. "If you want to go around the rosy and say did Republicans blow something? Yeah. Did Wilson? Yeah. Lockyer, Brulte, Peace? Yeah. The consumer associations? We're all tagged." PHOTO (5); Caption: (1) Bill Lockyer, state attorney general, raked energy CEOs., (2) James Brulte, assemblyman, helped craft deregulation., (3) Curt Pringle, ex-Assembly speaker, scorned Davis., (4) Steve Peace, state senator, wants Cisco Systems execs., (5) Pete Wilson, ex- governor, rapped Gov. Gray Davis. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. USA: California power refund talks begin Monday at FERC. By Chris Baltimore 06/24/2001 Reuters English News Service (C) Reuters Limited 2001. WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - California officials looking to win some payback from power generators who have reaped huge profits from selling electricity to the state and its utilities get an opportunity this week to prove their case and push for up to $9 billion in refunds. A Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) administrative law judge overseeing refund settlement talks in California's power market said Friday the energy firms that sold electricity in the state will probably have to pay back overcharges of "several billion dollars." In an interview with Reuters, Judge Curtis Wagner, the head FERC administrative law judge who will preside over the 15-day conference starting Monday, said California Gov. Gray Davis' claim the state was owed $9 billion was excessive. "I think that's high," Wagner said when asked about Davis' figure. "I'm hoping to come up with a settlement of the issue of a refund of overcharges - if there are overcharges. My sense is that there probably are," he said. FERC clarified late on Friday that the settlement talks are not limited to possible California refunds, but may also focus on settling past accounts related to other power sales in the Pacific Northwest. Enron Corp. , Mirant Corp. , Duke Energy Corp. , Williams Cos. , Reliant Energy Inc. and Dynegy Inc. are among the producers that FERC could compel to make refunds. The companies have said they did nothing wrong. Davis, the California Public Utilities Commission and the state's investor-owned utilities will join in the negotiations at FERC headquarters in Washington. If no agreement is reached, Wagner will have seven days to make a recommendation to the five FERC commissioners on the refund issue. The chasm of opinions between the two sides is huge. Davis says power companies like Duke and Enron collectively owe his state $9 billion in refunds for overcharges, a far cry from the $130 million in refunds FERC has so far approved. Reliant is one of the energy companies that bought power plants divested by California utilities as a condition of the state's ill-fated deregulation plan. Along with firms like Dynegy and Enron, it sold power from those plants to the state for rates at up to $1,000 a megawatt hour. ENERGY FIRMS BALK AT REFUND DEMAND Energy producers have balked at Davis' $9 billion figure. "Obviously we don't agree with figure," said a spokeswoman for Reliant Energy. "We don't think it's anywhere close to that magnitude." A Dynegy spokesman said $9 billion was excessive, and Dynegy was "willing to discuss any reasonable proposals that will lead to a long-term solution." Davis has painted the energy companies as modern-day robber barons looking to "bilk" his state out of millions of dollars. "California has been a cash cow to a lot of energy companies ... that have done extraordinarily well," the California governor said last week during Senate testimony. Davis said he based his figure on a study by the California Independent System Operator's Department of Market Analysis, which said wholesale prices exceeded "reasonable competitive market levels" by about $6.7 billion between May 2000 and February 2001. Extended through May 2001, that amount is closer to $8.9 billion. "Refunds are ... a primary vehicle to provide relief" to high energy prices, Davis said at a Senate hearing Wednesday. "They should be repaid." Davis accused FERC commissioners of being "asleep at the switch" for not taking prompt action on refunds. As part of FERC's price mitigation plan adopted last week to rein in rampant prices in the California wholesale power market, the agency required all public utility buyers and sellers to participate in the conference. All California generators, investor-owned utilities, some municipal utilities and state officials from the Public Utility Commission and Davis' office will attend, Wagner said. The administrative law judge said reaching an agreement in the 15-day period scheduled for the conference was "going to be tight." "But it's something we need quick action on," he added. "Sometimes it's best to have a short time period to do something." Wagner is also separately hearing the California Public Utilities Commission's complaint accusing El Paso Corp. of improperly sharing information with its natural gas marketing arm to boost the price of natural gas deliveries to California. The judge has found himself at the center of a political whirlwind over the role U.S. regulators should take to head off the California energy crisis. The White House has repeatedly rejected price caps, while Democrats insist they are the only way to shield rate payers from prices ten times higher than usual. "The political arena is not making it any easier," Wagner said, though he said no lawmaker had contacted him directly on the issue. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. BUSINESS PGE CRITICIZES ELECTRICITY PRICE LIMITS GAIL KINSEY HILL of the Oregonian Staff 06/24/2001 Portland Oregonian SUNRISE F01 (Copyright © The Oregonian 2001) Summary: The utility says the federal action could make Oregonians the losers this winter When federal regulators set price limits last week on wholesale electricity in the West, they intended to buffer rate increases for consumers and ease energy shortages in the region. They may have failed on both counts, at least in the Northwest, according to Oregon's largest utility. "Oregonians could well be losers," said Fred Miller, executive vice president of Portland General Electric, which serves 728,000 residential and business customers in the state. PGE officials were so disturbed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's order that on Friday they faxed a letter to Oregon's congressional delegates warning that the provisions could increase the likelihood of shortages in the Northwest this winter, hamper conservation efforts and discourage developers from building new power plants. PGE may be the commission's harshest critic in the Northwest. By late last week other utility officials were still sorting through the 50-page order the commission posted Tuesday, trying to figure out whether the order bore good, bad or inconsequential news. PacifiCorp, Oregon's second-largest utility, declined to comment until officials had thoroughly reviewed the order. Some hoped for relief from high-cost power purchases. Others fretted over a bad situation made worse. But none of the utility officials interviewed by The Oregonian embraced the order as a sure- fire antidote to energy shortages and rising retail rates. PGE serves about 40 percent of the state's electricity customers, primarily in the populous northern Willamette Valley. The utility, a subsidiary of power marketer Enron Corp., has opposed price caps ever since policy-makers began bandying about the idea some months ago. Under the commission's order, price limits move up or down based on the operating costs of the least efficient gas-fired power plant called into service in California during a declared power emergency. The floating cap is a relatively tame approach to price controls, but PGE still doesn't like it. "If you freeze prices, you're going to get more demand and less supply," the very responses utilities have been trying to counter, Miller said. During the past year, PGE benefited from high-priced markets. It bought more power than it needed to serve customers, then sold the excess at a profit. The strategy is not s sure thing. PGE could have lost money. But it came out ahead, and it used the proceeds to waylay rate increases. While utilities throughout the Northwest were raising rates by double digits, PGE was holding steady. "We bought long," Miller said. "That's how we avoided rate increases." Miller has another big worry. This winter. The regulatory commision's order links the price caps to the operating costs of the least efficient gas-fired plant operating in California during electric emergencies. In nonemergency times, the limit falls to 85 percent of that price. That means the lower price likely will prevail in winter, when demand slackens in California but rises in the Northwest. Miller maintains the lower price could discourage suppliers from selling into the region, which increases the likelihood of shortages in the Northwest. "Maybe what's most irksome," said Miller, "is that we essentially have turned over our future this winter to the Californians." Then, there's B.C. Hydro, a power provider that often sells large amounts of power to the Northwest in the winter. The price controls may not apply to the Canadian utility, and Northwest buyers may be forced to pay top dollar for the imports they often need in winter months. In its letter to congressional delegates, PGE says it will contact FERC "and suggest ideas on how the Western energy scenario can be improved but without unfairly transferring these problems to PGE's customers." In addition, Miller expects developers who have announced plans to build power plants may pull away because prices no longer justify the investment. PGE, Miller said, may scrap two small projects capable of adding about 70 megawatts to the electricity grid. Debating benefits When federal regulators issued their order, they said the entire West would soon feel the benefits of more stable prices. "The commission's goal remains to fix dysfunctional markets and to ensure that markets regain their competitive footing as quickly as possible," said Curt Hebert Jr., chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission' Responses from other utility officials in the Northwest varied, but none predicted an easing of rates for consumers. "We have a mixed reaction to it," said Mark Crisson, Tacoma Power's director of utilities. "At least they finally did something, but, at this point, it's too little too late." Tacoma Power, a municipal utility, was among the first to feel the hit of high electricity prices, which began their infamous rise in May 2000. Caught short of electricity as dry weather depleted water needed for hydro-powered generators, Tacoma rushed to the short term, or "spot" market to cover customer demand. On one memorable December day, after colder temperatures set in, it paid almost $3,000 a megawatt-hour, 100 times the usual rate. Six months ago, the utility raised rates by 50 percent on average, said Mike Crisson, Tacoma Power's director of utilities. At the same time, it pushed for price caps but got nowhere. "We needed them right away," Crisson said. "Here we are, six months later and they're half-measures." In the meantime, Tacoma Power, reduced its dependence on the spot market by locking in long-term contracts, Crisson said. Other utilities in the region took similar action. "We're pretty much protected," said Neil Neroutsos, a spokesman for Snohomish County People's Utility District, Washington's second largest utility. Seattle City Light, governed and operated by the city, is Washington's largest utility. Snohomish raised its rates by 35 percent Jan. 1. Eugene Water and Electric Board locked in some longer-term contracts to reduce its reliance on the wholesale market and could actually lose money on the strategy. If the utility ends up with a surplus and has to sell the extra power on the market, the caps could make the transactions money-losers, said Scott Spettel, the utility's power and planning manager. Even so, Spettel expects the price controls to help more than hurt. "All in all, lower prices are good for consumers," he said. Waiting on BPA Many Northwest utilities, particularly ones that are government-. or member-owned, rely heavily on Bonneville Power Administration for electricity and haven't yet heard whether the federal caps will affect new BPA rates to take effect Oct. 1. BPA, a federal agency based in Portland, markets almost half the electricity consumed in the Northwest. It will announce its new rates, which could jump by more than 75 percent, late this week. "The order's fairly complex," said Steve Oliver, vice president of bulk power for BPA. "We're still taking a look." This summer, BPA will neither buy nor sell much power on the spot market and, therefore, rarely will deal with the price limits. Another factor dulling the effect of the regulatory action is the market itself. Earlier this year, spot prices routinely hit $200 to $300 a megawatt-hour. They recently dropped to below $100 a megawatt- hour and have stayed below triple-digit territory. The weeks ahead likely will put the caps to the test. When hot summer days sweep through California, spot prices are expected to rise as rapidly as the mercury. Energy experts project that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission'sprice limits will hold prices to about $130 to $150 a megawatt hour. The projections assume natural gas prices don't spike again. You can reach Gail Kinsey Hill at 503-221-8590 or by e-mail at gailhill@news.oregonian.com. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. India: Calcutta HC rejects EMC plea 06/24/2001 Business Line (The Hindu) Copyright (C) 2001 Kasturi & Sons Ltd (KSL); Source: World Reporter (TM) - Asia Intelligence Wire KOLKATA: Mr Justice Prabir Kumar Samanta of the Calcutta High Court rejected the petition of Electrical Manufacturing Co Ltd (EMC) seeking a directive from the court to strike down an order of the lower court. A Civil Judge (Senior Division) of the Sealdah Court vacated an ad-interim order relating to repayment of loan granted by Enron India Pvt Ltd to EMC to the tune of Rs 6 crore for constructing a transmission line under the Maharashtra State Electricity Board. - Our Bureaus Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. India: DPC lenders unhappy with S&W report 06/23/2001 Business Line (The Hindu) Copyright (C) 2001 Kasturi & Sons Ltd (KSL); Source: World Reporter (TM) - Asia Intelligence Wire MUMBAI, June 22. LENDERS to Dabhol Power Company have asked the engineering consultant, Stone and Webster (S&W), to rework its report on the cost implications of mothballing the Dabhol power project. The lenders were not happy with the consultants for having delayed the report, it is learnt. Also, the costs were not ratified by Enron. They have reportedly written to S&W asking it to have a relook at the options available and rework the figures. According to sources, the lenders were not satisfied with the costs of various options worked out by the consultant. Lenders are still deliberating on a remedy that could be best in the current situation. According to some reports, S&W had estimated the cost of completing the project at around $400 million. However, the figure could not be confirmed. The consultant was mandated to compute the cost of three alternatives - suspend the project as it stands now without any penalties, mothball the incomplete project, or complete the project with lenders' funds and then mothball it. At present, 92 per cent of the project is complete. The termination of the agreements by construction contractors had almost ruled out the first option. However, the lenders reportedly were not happy with Enron too for "contributing" to the delay. The sources say there is also a possibility that Enron may try to persuade the contractors to reconsider their decision as the lenders are open to all options. Lenders feel that if the consultant had given a thorough report on time, some arrangement could have been chalked out. S&W was supposed to complete the report in a week from June 7. That would have enabled the lenders to reach a concrete decision on funding the rest of the project. Indian lenders have not met or formally discussed the issue after the Singapore meeting on June 5 and 6. - Dinesh Narayanan Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Enron CEO gets pie in face 06/23/2001 Press Trust of India Limited © 2001 PTI Ltd. Washington, June 22 (PTI) Enron Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Skilling was hit on the head with a pie as he defended energy companies against the criticism that they created an energy shortage and profiteered from it during a speech at the Commonwealth Club of California. Skilling wiped the pie, which had been heaved by activist Francine Cavanaugh, and carried on with the speech. Cavanaugh was detained but not arrested. US Senate candidate and consumer activist Medea Benjamin said Cavanaugh was from an international pie-throwing group called the Biotic Baking Brigade. The group has thrown pies at several notable figures, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Mayor Willie Brown. Enron has come under fire after accusations from Californian Governor Gray Davis and State officials for allegedly forcing electricity prices skyward by holding back supply. Enron and other companies have denied such charges. They claim that the State and State-based utilities owe them billions in unpaid bills. (THROUGH ASIA PULSE) 23-06 2001 Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. EDITORIAL POWER POLLUTION NO LAUGHING MATTER 06/23/2001 South Florida Sun-Sentinel Broward Metro 14A (Copyright 2001 by the Sun-Sentinel) Mr. Lowe's cartoon on the very important issue of power plants was very irresponsible and played only for laughs. Anyone in his right mind would not place three power plants, two of which will burn dirty diesel fuel (Enron's), in an urban area, within two miles of each other. There are hospitals, schools, homes, community centers, nursing homes, etc., under the shadow of a combined seven 80-foot smokestacks spewing out their poison. There are much better options: such as cleaner plants spread out over a much larger area. Florida Power & Light and the Broward County Commission have stated that Florida has enough power for the next 10 years. A moratorium hopefully will be put in place for one year to wait for the 20/20 study. What is the rush? Is it because Enron, a megabusiness along with their strong political presence (the White House and governor's mansions) has a complete disregard for the people? Maybe the next very funny cartoon by Lowe will be a few babies choking while the smokestacks are burning. Humor is important, but let him know the facts before he uses his barbs. Ann Mantell Coconut Creek Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. San Francisco Tourists Just Roll with the Outages Jasmine Kripalani 06/23/2001 KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Contra Costa Times - Walnut Creek, California Copyright (C) 2001 KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News; Source: World Reporter (TM) SAN FRANCISCO--Tourists are constantly asking the gift shop manager at Coit Tower if a blackout could occur while they ride the elevator to the top of the 210-foot fire hose nozzle-shaped landmark. "They're serious when they ask it. I always tell 'em, `We got the last guy out in only three days,'" said Walt Lo. Tour guides, hotel managers and gift shop clerks in the Bay Area have developed a sense of humor about the California energy crisis. But for many visitors the perception of blackouts conjures up images of streets without traffic lights and people trapped in elevators. Before leaving their Indiana suburb for vacation, Mike and Lisa Bonahoom worried about what was ahead, but not enough to stop them from booking a three-night stay at the room designed by former Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia in the Hotel Triton. "The perception in the Midwest is that (Californians) don't have lights," said Mike Bonahoom. Lisa, added: "We heard news reports that they shut the lights off every day (at a set time) in order to save electricity, and people would plan their day around that I worried about getting stuck in an elevator for hours, but I didn't mention any of this to the kids." It's a fear California's travel and tourism commission is taking so seriously that it has handed a public relations firm about a half-million dollars to plan an advertising campaign that will convince the rest of the world that it's still safe to travel to the Golden State. Communications director Fred Sater blames visitors' fears on the media's use of the term "rolling blackout." "`Planned outage' or `power interruption' -- that's the correct phrase," he said. Sater believes "rolling blackout" inaccurately implies long periods of darkness across the state. The San Francisco visitors bureau has taken a less expensive approach. It has posted a letter and Frequently Asked Questions list on its Web site (www.sfvisitor.org) that assures potential visitors that emergency services are still available and that they won't get stuck on an amusement park ride. But all the warnings in the world wouldn't have done much good on Thursday at about 1:10 p.m. when the lights in parts of San Francisco flickered, then went out for about an hour. Pacific Gas & Electric said 7,000 of its customers were without power and attributed it to a bad cable between Broadway and Vallejo on Mason Street. One of those customers included a souvenir shop near Fisherman's Wharf. Kathy Joy had to wait several minutes before she could complete a sweatshirt purchase. The cashier rushed to the front of the store with her solar-powered calculator in hand and returned with a total. "That'll be $19.90," Sharon Stevenson told Joy and added that she could only accept cash. Joy had the cash. Other stores, many of which mistook the outage for a blackout, were forced to shut down their businesses. Sean Farber, a sales manager at Studio 39, a video-making business in which a person's body is transposed on a backdrop of the Golden Gate Bridge, took advantage of the power outage to express his political viewpoint by posting a sign that read: "Thanks to PG&E, Enron, and George W Bush We will be closed until 3:00." Others saw the outage as an entrepreneurial opportunity. "Hey, folks, there's a rolling blackout. You might as well go on a Bay cruise," a tour operator loudly offered. Many didn't even notice the hourlong power outage. Two visitors from Naples, Fla., who were in town for the NASCAR races, noticed the darkened businesses only after a reporter pointed it out. "Well, if this means I can't get into the pub, I will be very upset," said Craig Barrero, who was clad in shorts and toting a video recorder. Other tourists said the only time the energy crisis has affected them is when they're ready to check out of their hotel room. When Robyn and Ben Reeve from Australia walked into their room at the Hilton on Fisherman's Wharf, they found the usual amenities: tightly tucked linens between mattresses and the bathroom towels symmetrically draped over a brass bar. The Reeves also found a letter from the general manager informing them that they would have to pay a $2.85 energy tax per night. Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. El Paso Awaits Decision as Generators Prepare to Face Lawsuits 2001-06-23 11:56 (New York) El Paso Awaits Decision as Generators Prepare to Face Lawsuits (For more on California's energy crisis, see {EXTRA <GO<} Washington, June 23 (Bloomberg) -- El Paso Corp., the owner of the biggest network of interstate natural-gas pipelines, is the first company to face a public hearing on charges of manipulating California energy prices. It likely won't be the last. U.S. Administrative Law Judge Curtis Wagner is to decide by Sept. 24 on allegations that El Paso held natural gas off the California market to boost prices. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can accept or reject Wagoner's ruling. The case was brought by the state's two biggest utilities and the California Public Utilities Commission, which also is working with state Attorney General Bill Lockyer on a civil lawsuit against power producers. Lockyer plans to convene a grand jury next month to investigate claims that the generators withheld electricity to drive up prices. ``You're getting the attorney general and the CPUC looking at potentially going into court,'' said Mark Easterbrook, an analyst with Dain Rauscher Wessels. ``Investors just don't want to deal with this uncertainty.'' The Standard & Poor's Utilities Index, whose members include generators Mirant Corp., Duke Energy Corp. and Reliant Energy Inc., has fallen 8 percent in the past month. The S&P Natural Gas Distributors & Pipe Lines Index has dropped 17 percent. It includes El Paso and energy traders Enron Corp., Dynegy Inc. and Williams Cos. California's electricity prices rose more than ninefold in the first quarter from a year earlier, and state officials forecast that shortages during hot weather may bring as many as 30 days of blackouts through August. Generators have repeatedly said they didn't break the law, blaming high prices on rising demand and a lack of new supply. No major power plants have been built for a decade in California. ``These investigations are built around some sort of odd theory of market manipulation, and we did absolutely no such thing,'' Mirant spokesman Chuck Griffin said. ``Our dealings have been above-board and according to the rules that were established before we were even in the market.'' Common Theme Both El Paso and the generators are accused of withholding supplies to drive up prices. Lockyer says power companies held back electricity under the guise of routine plant maintenance, forcing utilities to pay soaring prices for megawatts that remained on the market. The El Paso case stems from the Houston-based company's sale of California-bound pipeline capacity to its merchant-energy unit. Plaintiffs allege the El Paso unit withheld the billion cubic feet of space to drive up natural-gas prices in California. Gas is used to fuel many of the state's power plants. FERC economists testified on behalf of the CPUC and the utilities, PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric and Edison International's Southern California Edison. California gas prices ranged from $11.79 to $18.80 per thousand cubic feet by December, compared to $4 to $7 elsewhere in the U.S., a FERC study showed. ``At least part of the FERC staff took seriously the idea that a firm could establish market power and raise prices,'' said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California's Energy Institute, who isn't involved in the El Paso trial. Gas Prices El Paso argues that gas prices surged because the state's electricity shortage spurred generators to run their plants almost nonstop, and utilities' credit risk increased as they ran out of cash buying power at soaring prices. Judge Wagner finished hearing testimony this week on the market-manipulation charge. He is now investigating claims that El Paso's merchant-energy unit unfairly won the 15-month pipeline contract. Whatever the outcome, the hearings may educate California investigators about energy trading. State deregulation of energy markets has boosted profits for trading companies that buy and sell electricity and natural gas. ``California is learning how to understand the energy markets,'' said Michael Aguirre, a former prosecutor handling two lawsuits against power companies, one for California Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante. ``The learning curve has been a very steep one.'' Alleged Power Overcharges May Be Less Than Calif Argues By Jason Leopold 06/22/2001 Dow Jones Energy Service (Copyright © 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.) OF DOW JONES NEWSWIRES LOS ANGELES -(Dow Jones)- Nearly every energy company, including municipal utilities, that has the ability to supply California with electricity has allegedly overcharged the state tens millions of dollars over the course of a year, according to the state's power grid operator. But the $9 billion total in alleged overcharges detailed by Gov. Gray Davis to the U.S. Congress this week may have been overstated by more than $2 billion, according to documents obtained by Dow Jones Newswires. Generators whose wholesale power prices are regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, allegedly overcharged the state $2.1 billion from May to September 2000 and $2.6 billion between October and February, according to the ISO. FERC can order refunds only from October onward because of a federal law that requires a filing for refunds to be made within 60 days of the purchases, according to FERC. The ISO began appealing for refunds in December, claiming the alleged overcharges were a result of market power, or the ability to boost wholesale prices above competitive levels. However, a $1 billion alleged overcharge by Sempra Energy Trading Corp. and San Diego Gas & Electric, both units of Sempra Energy (SRE), was deleted by the ISO, according to the documents. The ISO wouldn't explain the reason it erased the company's alleged overcharge. Generators said Davis's numbers "didn't add up" and maintained that they didn't overcharge the state. The ISO said it planned to recalculate the figures but the agency didn't discredit Davis's refund estimate. Some of the numbers calculated by the ISO are much higher than the companies' entire earnings for 2000, according to earnings statements. Energy companies with the largest overcharges between May 2000 and February, as alleged by the ISO: British Columbia Power Exchange Corp.: $439 million Aquila Inc. (ILA): $48 million Automated Power Exchange: $16 million Calpine Corp. (CPN): $236 million Coral Power LLC: $27 million Duke Energy Corp. (DUK): $804 million Electric Clearinghouse Inc. (DYN): $530 million Enron Corp. (ENE): $39 million El Paso Corp. (EPG) : $29 million Idaho Power (IDA): $28 million Portland General Electric: $44 million Puget Sound Energy: $24 million Reliant Energy Inc. (REI) $750 million Mirant Corp. (MIR), formerly Southern Co., $753 million Sempra Energy Trading Corp. (SRE): $82 million (this number has been eliminated by the ISO) Williams Cos. (WMB) $860 million -By Jason Leopold, Dow Jones Newswires; 323-658-3874; jason.leopold@dowjones.com Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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