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Date: Tue, 01 May 2001 13:25:56 -0500 From: "Tracey Bradley" <tbradley@bracepatt.com< To: "Justin Long" <jlong@bracepatt.com< Cc: "Aryeh Fishman" <afishman@bracepatt.com<, "Andrea Settanni" <asettanni@bracepatt.com<, "Charles Ingebretson" <cingebretson@bracepatt.com<, "Charles Shoneman" <cshoneman@bracepatt.com<, "Deanna King" <dking@bracepatt.com<, "Dan Watkiss" <dwatkiss@bracepatt.com<, "Gene Godley" <ggodley@bracepatt.com<, "Kimberly Curry" <kcurry@bracepatt.com<, "Michael Pate" <mpate@bracepatt.com<, "Paul Fox" <pfox@bracepatt.com<, "Ronald Carroll" <rcarroll@bracepatt.com< Subject: Western lawmakers want Bush help with power Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline UPDATE 1-Western lawmakers want Bush help with power ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- WASHINGTON, April 30 (Reuters) - Thirty-three Democratic U.S. lawmakers from California, Washington state and Oregon wrote to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham on Monday demanding stronger federal action to help western states suffering from an ongoing electricity shortage crisis. The lawmakers want a regionwide price cap for wholesale power prices to prevent hugely inflated prices and rolling blackouts this summer when demand intensifies due to air conditioning season. They specifically criticized the Republican-led Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for failing to maintain fair and reasonable rates, allowing generators to profit from power prices some 10 times historical levels. "If political leadership were exercised today by the administration and FERC, California and the Pacific Northwest would already be on their way to ending the price-gouging," said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat from California. FERC last week approved a number of price mitigation measures to tame the power shortages in California, but remains against a regional price cap. The stance has drawn the ire of many lawmakers and dissent from FERC Commissioner William Massey, who says without such caps, the situation will not get better. Massey is outflanked on the commission by FERC Chairman Curtis Hebert, a Republican, and Linda Breathitt, a Democrat. Experts in California estimate power supplies could fall some 5,000 megawatts short this summer on a daily basis, threatening the return of rolling blackouts to cut demand. Eshoo is also the author of legislation to impose cost-of-service based rates in the Western energy market. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- Copyright , 2001 Reuters Limited.
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