-Caveat Lector-
CA Says Secret Power Company
Cartel Caused Rate Increases
5-18-1
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - State investigators have
found evidence that "a cartel'' of power companies
closed plants for unnecessary maintenance in order to
inflate prices, the head of California's Public Utilities
Commission said in an interview published Friday in
the Los Angeles Times.
Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch
told the Times that her agency, along with the
California attorney general's office, is investigating
patterns of plant outages that have created ``artificial
shortages,'' particularly when the state has issued
emergency alerts due to seriously low electricity levels.
``There are instances where plants could have
produced, and they chose not to,'' Lynch said.
``And it is clear that there are instances that plants,
when called to produce, chose not to produce,'' even
when they were obligated to do so under special
contracts with the state and utility companies, she said.
California officials from Gov. Gray Davis on down have
insisted that the state's electricity crisis is
aggravated
by price gouging by electric generators.
Lynch told the Los Angeles Times that the investigation
by the commission and the attorney general's office
has already produced enough evidence to warrant
taking legal action against the generators as early as
next month.
She declined to name the generators and said that the
nature of the legal action was still under review.
The Times said that plant shutdowns are a key factor
in soaring power prices that have gone from $200 a
megawatt hour in December to $1,900 a megawatt
hour last week.
In her interview with the Times, Lynch said of the high
prices, ``I would argue that it's no accident. That in
fact
it's (due to) the coordinated behavior of a cartel.''
Power generators, on the other hand, have repeatedly
said they acted within the parameters of California's
flawed deregulation program and denied that they were
illegally manipulating the power market. The plants,
they have said, were so old, breakdowns were a
recurring problem, especially during the recent power
crisis.
Gary Ackerman, executive director of Western Power
Trading Forum, a trade association of large power
producers, told the Times that Lynch's allegations were
``the height of idiocy.''
``My members do not make money by shutting down
their plants so their competitors can make money,''
Ackerman said.
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