WGA conf call tomorrow

All--here's some thoughts on our work with the Governors going forward thru
the next 3 to 6 months. Although Paul and I have talked about picking 4 or 5
specific issues or solutions to focus on, I am a bit concerned that we will
not be able to get them to focus on more than 1 or 2. We also have to give
them some constituent cover, and the other overriding concern is that the
Republicans will generally only support what Cheney/Bush support. The
Republican governors are clearly looking at the WGA as a vehicle to "cover"
their interests as well as an entity to come up with a solution for new and
improved transmission systems.

Here's a few strategies we've been talking about in addition to what we're
doing at the WGA transmission workshop meetings:

1. Convince the Governors that they need to send a strong message to all
stakeholders that they expect RTO west to have met identified goals and
guidelines by a certain date and be up and running by a date beyond that.
We would need to come up with that timeline in very short order, as the best
shot we would have in getting those dates in the public domain on record
would be thru the energy resolutions that will be passed at the WGA annual
conference in August. This would be a long shot because of all of the
incumbent interests. However, if we could get a VERY simple message on this
goal we might have a shot.

2. Educate/mobilize the Governors to petition FERC to make sure that the
refund settlement mania doesn't extend outside sales in California. Paul can
talk about this a little more in depth tomorrow---my understanding is that
Pacificorp is looking for that relief, but our argument would be that a
bailout for them would in esssence punish all of the utilities that did right
by their customers and planned well. We could frame it as a shareholder vs
consumer issue.

3. Formalize a list of compatible items in both the Democrat and the
Cheney/Bush plans and work to communicate those areas that could be agreed
on. I'm not sure how measurable the benefit to us would be in this
endeavor---I think we would have to do tremendous PR in order for it to have
any benefit to Bush and therefore the Republican Governors. The individual
benefits to Locke and Kitzhaber might be better relationships for us with
their offices, but I'm not sure what else.

And of course we would like the Governors to petition FERC to mandate open
access--we're trying to set a time in late July for Steve Kean and Governor
Geringer to meet. Kean thinks Geringer might be a good messenger to FERC.