Enron Mail

From:james.steffes@enron.com
To:richard.sanders@enron.com
Subject:Reuters -- Calif. ISO may vote again on power price cap cut
Cc:
Bcc:
Date:Tue, 11 Jul 2000 03:25:00 -0700 (PDT)

FYI.

Jim
---------------------- Forwarded by James D Steffes/HOU/EES on 07/11/2000
10:25 AM ---------------------------


Susan J Mara
07/11/2000 09:43 AM
To: Mark Palmer/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Richard Shapiro/HOU/EES@EES, Dennis
Benevides/HOU/EES@EES, Tim Belden/HOU/ECT@ECT, Robert Badeer/HOU/ECT@ECT,
Roger Yang/SFO/EES@EES, Sandra McCubbin/SFO/EES@EES, Mona L
Petrochko/SFO/EES@EES, Jeff Dasovich/SFO/EES@EES, James D
Steffes/HOU/EES@EES, Paul Kaufman/PDX/ECT@ECT, Bruno Gaillard/SFO/EES@EES,
Elsa Piekielniak/Corp/Enron@Enron, Scott Vonderheide/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Mary
Hain/HOU/ECT@ECT, Rob Bradley/Corp/Enron@ENRON
cc:
Subject: Reuters -- Calif. ISO may vote again on power price cap cut

Oh, Lord! We have to keep the pressure on -- particularly what a bad idea it
is to lower price caps in times of resource shortage. Do we have a Jimmie
Carter analogy we can use?
---------------------- Forwarded by Susan J Mara/SFO/EES on 07/11/2000 09:39
AM ---------------------------


"Tracey Bradley" <tbradley@bracepatt.com< on 07/11/2000 07:49:39 AM
To: "Ronald Carroll" <rcarroll@bracepatt.com<, <smara@enron.com<
cc:
Subject: Reuters -- Calif. ISO may vote again on power price cap cut


FYI

Calif. ISO may vote again on power price cap cut


LOS ANGELES, July 10 (Reuters) - The California Independent System
Operator (ISO) Board of Governors may try for a third time to pass a motion
to cut a cap on power prices to $250 per megawatt hour (MWh) from its current
$500 per MWh.

"It wouldn't surprise me if in the next few days there is a request to
add it to the August 1 agenda," a member of the ISO Board of Governors said
on Monday.

The California ISO operates most of the state's power grid.

Last week its governing board voted by 12 votes to nine, with one
abstention, in favor of lowering the cap but failed to secure the 13 votes
necessary to pass under the motion under ISO rules.

The previous week a vote to cut the cap to $250 per MWh failed to pass
after a 12-12 vote but a new meeting was called after one member, Marcie
Edwards of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, declared she had
incorrectly cast her vote against the lower cap.

Two members were absent overseas during last week's vote. One, John
McGuire of Silicon Valley Power, had supported the cut to $250 at the June 28
vote. He is due to return from vacation on July 26.

The other absent member, Daniel Kirschner of the Environmental Defense
Fund, is due to return from overseas during the next couple of days, sources
said.

It was not clear which way Kirschner is likely to vote as he was also
absent from the June 28 vote. The board at 25 members on the June 28 vote,
but one member resigned before the subsequent vote.

Pressure to cut the cap has come from several sources including state
Sen. Steve Peace, whose San Diego constituents have been angered by sharply
higher electricity bills recently.

Under rules governing the deregulation of the state's power industry
customers of San Diego Gas and Electric are currently the only ones exposed
to market prices.

"He (Peace) is getting all kinds of hate mail and is really trying to do
something," an industry source said.

San Diego Gas and Electric is a unit of Sempra Energy .

Rates for customers of California's other two investor owned utilities,
Edison International's Southern California Edison and PG&E Corp.'s Pacific
Gas and Electric, are currently frozen.

Other proponents of cutting the cap including Loretta Lynch, president
of the California Public Utilities Commission and a close aide to Governor
Gray Davis.

San Diego Gas and Electric has called an emergency summit of energy
market participants -- including power generators, energy service providers
and representatives of the California Independent System Operator and
California Power Exchange - on Wednesday to explore solutions to the soaring
prices.

Supporters of cutting the cap believe the power market is not "workably
competitive" and prices rose to excessive levels during a recent heatwave,
putting an unfair burden on both ratepayers and shareholders of investor
owned utilities.

Opponents are led by independent power producers who have argued a lower
cap could make it more difficult for the state to import power at times of
shortage.