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Enron Mail |
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: John Shelk X-To: Steven J Kean, Richard Shapiro, James D Steffes, Linda Robertson, Tom Briggs, Carin Nersesian X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Richard_Shapiro_June2001\Notes Folders\All documents X-Origin: SHAPIRO-R X-FileName: rshapiro.nsf Confirming earlier indications, at about 3 pm EDT today, Chairman Tauzin convened the committee to issue a joint statement with Rep. Waxman and then recessed the committee subject to the call of the chair following the Memorial Day Week Recess. Congress will not return until the week of June 4, but staff level discussions will likely occur after the three-day weekend. Chairman Tauzin said that the committee is receiving conflicting information on the facts in California. He said it is better to take a little longer to get the facts straight and evaluate various options, rather than act quickly but in the wrong way. He did say he expects that the committee will come to a bipartisan agreement after the recess. Behind the scenes, we hear that Democrats appear not to want to reach an agreement, instead preferring to keep the issue alive. Republicans, on the other hand, want to spare their vulnerable West Coast Members another recorded vote against price caps. Thankfully, following our collective efforts yesterday, the discussion has moved off of the 80/20 long term contract requirement. Republicans are poised to offer the Ose bill as an alternative for discussion and amendment if an agreement is not reached. The Ose bill would extend FERC's pricing formula to 24/7 and throughout the West. Staff report that Members were far from agreement and that no one concept was embraced for further refinement. It does appear, however, that some Members, such as Rep. Mary Bono (R-CA) are pushing for some type of price mitigation that they can vote for. With Republicans increasingly worried about the political impact of the energy issue, we will need to continue our work next Tuesday, starting with an in-depth analysis of the Ose bill.
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