Legislative Hearing on Gas

FYI. The agenda for the legislative oversight committee's gas hearing
tomorrow includes two Brattle Group consultants, Paul Carpenter and Matt
O'Loughlin. They will make up the first panel, titled, "California's High
Natural Gas Prices: Market Power and Other Factors."

In California's gas wars, Edison hired these folks--Carpenter in particular--
to show that SoCalGas has considerable market power in California and abuses
it. (Edison was a long-time, very unhappy gas customer of SoCalGas', until
it sold off its power plants. The animosity remains, however.) Should be
interesting to see where the committe goes with that panel.

CA PUC lawyer, Harvey Morris, is the sole witness on the second panel.
Harvey is zealous in his assertions regarding market power in interestate
markets serving California and is the PUC's lead attorney on such matters at
FERC.

I plan on attending the hearing.

It's likely that I will also be attending a hearing on price caps at CMA's
offices in the afternoon.

Best,
Jeff