I'm hearing murmurings on my local TV news (KTVU) a week or two ago about how California might be headed for some kind of new energy crisis because of repairs being made on power plants.

You have got to be kidding me. Every year there's a new and improved reason for a "crisis" to justify charging Californians even more for their power than the previous year.

Not only is there a "crisis" all of a sudden around summertime every year for a different reason, but every year we find out the year before's reason was merely a new creative inaccuracy (as revealed later in some report before being swept under the carpet, again).

Here's a CNN article from November 2002 that I just found in a pile of stuff I never got around to blogging before now that sums up how things were just starting to look back then.

Looks like they're starting to pick up the offenders. How nice. Nice show for the people. Let's see if it goes anywhere.

Here are some other articles I've posted earlier on this subject that remind us that the important part is to make sure that the State of California doesn't pay these companies a penny more for these blatant overcharges.

Last I checked, the State Of California still owed the power companies a bundle for the overcharges.

More articles and docs on this in the days to come. Maybe this will be the year that Californians 1) don't get shafted by the energy companies again and 2) see some of these crooks actually go to jail and 3) (new addition 6/13/03) "Get their money back" from the crooks who conspired to steal it from them by not having to pay one penny of the 7 Billion dollar tab.

I'm not holding my breath, but it sure will be interesting to see how this thing plays out.

Report: Evidence of price-gouging during California energy crisis

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A report by federal energy regulators details how two power companies may have conspired to drive up prices during California's 2000-2001 energy crisis.

The previously undisclosed findings have angered officials who say regulators let the companies off with just a slap on the wrist.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report focuses on discussions between employees of Williams and AES Corporation about prolonging an outage at a power plant to take advantage of higher prices the state was paying at the height of the crisis.

The report says employees also cut deals to shut down a second power plant AES operated for Williams.

As a result of the two plants being closed for 15 days, Williams earned more than $10 million in energy sales from its other plants.

The FERC investigation ended in March 2001 when Williams agreed to refund the state $8 million. The companies did not admit any wrongdoing.

Here is the entire text of the article in case the link goes bad:

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/West/11/16/california.energy.ap/index.html

Report: Evidence of price-gouging during California energy crisis

Sunday, November 17, 2002 Posted: 1:25 AM EST (0625 GMT)
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SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- A report by federal energy regulators details how two power companies may have conspired to drive up prices during California's 2000-2001 energy crisis.

The previously undisclosed findings have angered officials who say regulators let the companies off with just a slap on the wrist.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report focuses on discussions between employees of Williams and AES Corporation about prolonging an outage at a power plant to take advantage of higher prices the state was paying at the height of the crisis.

The report says employees also cut deals to shut down a second power plant AES operated for Williams.

As a result of the two plants being closed for 15 days, Williams earned more than $10 million in energy sales from its other plants.

The FERC investigation ended in March 2001 when Williams agreed to refund the state $8 million. The companies did not admit any wrongdoing.