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Re: Presentation at ETS HR Employee Meeting | Thanks. I was glad to do it and would do it again... next time my computer will work. I benefitted a great deal from what I heard from the group especially regarding the PRC. Roger Sumlin 03/23/2001 09:34 AM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Gary P Smith/OTS/Enron@ENRON Wilson Barbee/HR/Corp/Enron@ENRON Brian Schaffer/Corp/Enron@ENRON Ann Vaughn/HR/Corp/Enron@ENRON Fran Fagan/OTS/Enron@ENRON Subject: Presentation at ETS HR Employee Meeting Steve . . . FYI -- we conducted a post-event survey on opinions about the HR employee meeting held last month and the HR management team thought you should know that participants rated your presentation very high. When asked what should be kept the same next time participants commented as follows about your presentation: I think a presentation from Corporate HR is of great value. Keep the presentations by the officers . . . to talk about the business. I liked having other people from ETS/Enron there to better understand the big picture and where Enron is going. Continue to bring in invited guests to keep the group apprised of Corporate activities. I liked the opportunity to hear both Stan and Steve--the field staff don't get as many opportunities to hear from corporate management. Visits by Steve Kean and Stan Horton. Their perspectives are very good . . . Clearly your participation provided much value to the group and we appreciate very much your taking the time to come meet with us and share information. You should expect that we'll be asking you to come back again! Regards - Roger | human resources | friendly | 3 |
Re: RGA request | Just a heads up ... Ken may get a call from Gov Gilmore regarding the Republican Governors' Association. Below are Sue Landwehr's recommendations (with which I concur). Let me know if he calls and let us know if you need any additional information. | other | formal | 3 |
null | Portland General called. They have heard that Defazio is going to propose in a press release that the state of Oregon should buy PGE. | utilities | neutral | 3 |
Re: Job Description Revised | I'm afraide this leaves too much room to manuever. Having duties related to setting legislative affairs strategy and developing a plan for contacts on the Hill will give Cynthia the idea that she can run all aspects of those duties not just those related specifically to her substantive area. I think it is also worth covering the heavy emphasis on teamwork and supporting rather than directing others in the organization. Richard Shapiro 08/02/2000 04:17 PM To: Gwendolyn Petteway/HR/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Steven J Kean/HOU/EES@EES Subject: Re: Job Description Revised Good to go. Gwendolyn Petteway@ENRON 08/02/2000 04:07 PM To: Richard Shapiro/HOU/EES@EES cc: Subject: Job Description Revised See attached email with revised job description for Cynthia Sandherr. ----------------- | human resources | formal | 3 |
Re: Thanks & Questions | I enjoyed talking with you the other day and am happy to answer your questions: both the Texas position and the Washington DC position report to Rick Shapiro. From a government affairs standpoint I've divided the world between Rick's group (the Americas) and Mark Schroeder's group (Europe and Asia). Both Rick and Mark report to me. Joe Allen continues as part of the Texas legislative team working for the head of that group (formerly Kathleen Magruder). Terry Thorn has taken a commercial position in Enron and no longer works on government affairs issues for the company (except to the extent we call on various executives to help from time-to-time). Untermeyer Chase <Chase.Untermeyer@COMPAQ.com> on 08/31/2000 04:53:09 PM To: 'skean@enron.com' <skean@enron.com> cc: Subject: Thanks & Questions STEVE: I very much appreciate your call the day before yesterday and your asking if I would like to compete to succeed Joe Hillings as head of Enron's Washington office. Although until that moment I hadn't thought of returning to Washington except to serve again in national office I would be pleased to talk further about this opportunity with you or your recruiter. In recalling our conversation I realize that twice you asked if I had any questions and if I had been quick to take advantage of your offer I would have asked how government relations are handled at Enron. To whom does Joe Hillings report: to you or to Terry Thorne? You mentioned a woman who currently has responsibility for government relations in Texas and some neighboring states but is leaving for another job at Enron to whom does she report? Then there is Joe Allen whom I have known since our days in the Legislature doesn't he (also) handle Texas affairs? I am sorry I didn't ask you all this on Tuesday. Whatever the answers it's clear that government relations are much more central to the work of Enron than at Compaq which is why it would be a very exciting place to work. Thanks again for your call your courtesy and your indulgence with this tardy line of questioning. With best wishes CHASE. CHASE UNTERMEYER Director of Government Affairs Compaq Computer Corporation P.O. Box 692000-110706 Houston Texas 77269-2000 Tel: (281) 518-1093 Fax: (281) 518-1106 chase.untermeyer@compaq.com | other | formal | 3 |
Fwd: Decision 00-08-037 (Signed 8/21/00) | ----------------- | legal affairs | neutral | 0 |
EPSA Meeting On RTO Legislation | We had a positive result in the EPSA Legislative Affairs Committee meeting yesterday afternoon. The EPSA staff draft of a letter to Barton on his RTO discussion proposal will be significantly strengthened and EPSA staff will start by incorporating the comments I sent over earlier in the week. The original draft said the Barton RTO language only needed technical corrections. EPSA staff reiterated that some member co. or cos. think Barton's draft could have been worse. My reply was this logic was like saying we should be grateful he shot us in the head instead of hanging us -- one method may be more humane but either way we are dead (OK the analogy may be too rough -- but it made the point.) (I subsequently confirmed that Reliant is the soft member -- their rep. told me they support the discussion draft although they wouldn't object if it is strengthened.) A stronger EPSA letter with more specific reasons why we oppose the Barton discussion draft will be circulated among EPSA members today or Monday with the goal of sending the letter first thing Tuesday when Congress returns. Some wanted a general letter requesting a meeting and deferring specific comments until the meeting. I pointed out that Barton is speaking to subcommittee members right now and that we needed to copy them on a more detailed letter ASAP so they hear from us before Barton gets to them. We will make the same contacts ourselves. In fact we have already started. Spoke to Reps. Chip Pickering and Rep. Greg Walden both subcommittee Republicans this week (did same with staff to Rep. John Shimkus). Key task when House staff return to work on Tuesday will be finding out where Ranking Member Rick Boucher is on the Barton RTO draft. Barton implied at a conference earlier this week that he and Boucher are in agreement on RTOs. | other | formal | 5 |
Washington DC - Council of the Great City Schools | 2:00 - 5:00 Secretary Reilly will speak just before you. | human resources | formal | 3 |
RE: Dinner | Steve I am in London this week. Let's connect when you come back. Vince | personal & social | casual | 0 |
null | I got a voicemail response from Jeff - he is fine with me substituting for him on the Japan trip. | personal & social | casual | 2 |
FERC investigation | Have we suggested to FERC staff that they force the ISO and PX to open the blackbox to show how they determine dispatch? In addtion if you are not on the distribution list for Belden's memo on utility behavior in California this summer I will forward it to you. It suggests some other areas FERC ought to be looking into. | energy infrastructure | formal | 3 |
Revised Merger Release & Q&A | fyi | other | casual | 0 |
Western Interstate Energy Board | Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation in Tempe AZ | other | formal | 3 |
Re: NewPower Withdrawal Notes | How about inserting the attached (after the explanation about the relationship between New Power and Enron)? Binky Davidson@EES 03/15/2001 05:35 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Subject: NewPower Withdrawal Notes Mark Muller sends the attached for your information and comments. | other | formal | 3 |
Recap of House Action Last Night on Energy Package | Late last night the House on a 240-189 vote passed as amended H.R. 4 -- the Securing Amerca's Future Energy (SAFE) Act of 2001. Here is what happened on the three amendments of interest to Enron: 1. The House overwhelmingly defeated (154 to 274) a Waxman Amendment (D-CA) to impose cost of service rates on wholesale sales of electricity in the WSCC for 18 months. Only three House Republicans supported the amendment (all from California -- Gallegly Issa and Hunter) 57 Democrats opposed the Waxman Amendment including all of the Texas Democrats EXCEPT Frost Hinojosa Rodriguez and Doggett (these four SUPPORTED the Waxman Amendment). Thus our collective lobbying efforts in recent months focusing on California Republicans Texas Democrats and other moderate Democrats worked out in the end. 2. The House also overwhelmingly defeated the Cox Amendment (R-CA) to grant California a waiver of the Clean Air Act's oxygenate requirement for reformulated gasoline. The vote was 125 to 300 (44 Republicans 80 Democrats and 1 independent voted for the amendment 173 Republicans 126 Democrats and 1 independent) voted against it. 3. The House also defeated the Green Amendment (D-TX) to repeal the Natural Gas Act's Hinshaw Exemption as it applies to California's intrastate natural gas pipelines. The vote was 154 to 275 (123 Republicans and 31 Democrats voted for it while 95 Republicans 178 Democrats and 2 independents voted against the amendment). Please call or e-mail with comments or questions. The Senate Energy Committee is starting its work this week on an energy package with consideration of an R&D title (other issues will be taken up in September including electricity). The House Energy and Commerce Committee will now turn to electricity issues with staff drafting during the August Recess hearings in September and votes on legislation in September or early October. | other | informative | 3 |
Re: Video for Management Conference | I'd love to but I'll be in London Marge Nadasky@ECT 10/11/2000 12:01 PM To: Robert Horton/HOU/ECT@ECT Mark Frevert/NA/Enron@Enron Andrew S Fastow/HOU/ECT@ECT Ken Rice/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Kevin Hannon/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Karen S Owens@ees@EES Thomas E White/HOU/EES@EES John Sherriff/LON/ECT@ECT Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron Mark Koenig/Corp/Enron@ENRON Cliff Baxter/HOU/ECT@ECT Cindy Olson/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Cindy Stark/Corp/Enron@ENRON Karen Owens/HOU/EES@EES Bridget Maronge/HOU/ECT@ECT Maureen McVicker/NA/Enron@Enron Dorothy Dalton/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Carol Ann Brown/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Jennifer Burns/HOU/ECT@ECT Susan Skarness/HOU/ECT@ECT Joannie Williamson/Corp/Enron@ENRON Judy G Smith/HOU/EES@EES Bobbie Power/Corp/Enron@ENRON Subject: Video for Management Conference You recently received an e-mail from Terrie James regarding a video we are working on for the upcoming Management Conference. We have been able to lock in a date and time to do this taping on Thursday October 19th from 4-6 p.m. We are still working on the location for this taping but plan on this taking place in close proximity to the Enron Building. Can you please let me know if you will be available to participate in this group session? If not we will be following up with some individual taping the week of the 23rd. If you have questions feel free to contact Terrie James on Ext. 37727 or myself on Ext. 36631. Marge Nadasky | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Video Tape | I'll send it back on Tuesday. Jose Bestard@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT 02/18/2000 08:02 PM To: Steven J Kean/HOU/EES@EES cc: Maureen McVicker/HOU/EES@EES Subject: Video Tape Steve. Did you get a chance to look at the video tape I gave you? I would like to have it back to show it in Brazil Thanks Jose | other | polite | 3 |
RE: | Anne Thanks. I shall join. Vince | meetings & events | casual | 1 |
WSP: Market Ripe for Manipulation... | Cc list suppressed... Public opinion is the pendulum that swings law...dsg August 4 2000 Deregulation Leaves Electricity Market Ripe for Manipulation by Power Firms By REBECCA SMITH and JOHN J. FIALKA Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL It's a market ripe for manipulation: surging demand for an indispensable commodity weak oversight and a chaotic new set of rules amid a transition from heavy regulation to open competition. This is the state of the U.S. electricity business in the summer of 2000. And sure enough there's growing evidence that some power companies are finding lucrative ways to exploit the system -- at consumers' expense. The tactics include manipulating wholesale electricity auctions taking juice from transmission systems when suppliers aren't supposed to and denying weaker competitors access to transmission lines. None of this is illegal and much of it might be considered basic competition. But as an electricity shortage plunges sweltering California into an energy crisis and fears of even worse shortages rattle the Northeast the practices of power suppliers face more scrutiny than ever. (See related article.) Steamy Conditions A hot summer day last year shows one kind of manipulation. On July 28 1999 wholesale electricity prices in the Middle Atlantic states hit $935 per megawatt hour. That was seven times what it costs to generate power at the most expensive plant in the region. An analysis of trading data from that day shows that PECO Energy Corp. and PPL Corp. the old Philadelphia Electric Co. and Pennsylvania Power & Light made the most of steamy conditions. In the region's power market deregulated in 1997 a new corporation called PJM Interconnection LLC runs the transmission system once operated piecemeal by eight utilities. It also operates a daily electricity auction that sorts the hourly bids of 540 generating plants. The cheapest plants are called on first but when the weather is hot and demand is acute higher offers are taken as well. To attract as many bidders as possible the highest bid each hour sets the price for the entire market for that hour. Grid and Bear It Rise in average wholesale electricity prices at key transmission-interconnection points for the month of May from 1997 to 2000. TRANSMISSION-INTERCONNECTION POINT % CHANGE 1997-2000 Texas +293% +216 Tennessee Valley Authority +165 California-Oregon border +162 New York-West +138 Chicago area +130 New England +117 New York-East +101 Upper Midwest +99 Florida +89 Mid-Atlantic region +80* *Includes only years 1999-2000 Source: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission RDI Power What PECO and PPL did was offer much of their output at low prices so that the majority of their plants would be called into service. But knowing demand was so high they offered power from their tiniest plants at vastly higher bids in a way that often set the peak price for a number of hours. Consumers that day ended up paying millions of extra dollars for power. Cases like this show that during the transition to deregulation there's a good argument the system has broken down says William Massey a commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Agency. FERC which polices the nation's bulk power markets began the deregulation movement in 1996. It wasn't supposed to be this way. In the old days utilities generated electricity and delivered it to customers in exclusive territories. To protect consumers from gouging rates were regulated. But while supply had to be able to meet peak demand at all times demand varied widely within regions between regions and from one season to another. The result was tremendous reliability but also inefficiency and waste. Deregulation now under way in half the country and functioning nationally at the wholesale level allows new players -- some affiliated with utilities some not -- to build power plants and sell electricity. Prices are supposed to be set by competitive markets. Risks are borne by investors not ratepayers. At the same time utilities are surrendering control of long-haul transmission lines to new nonprofit operators like the one in the Middle Atlantic region which are supposed to ensure fair access to the grid -- the multistate system of high voltage lines. Under this new regime energy prices should have dropped as companies raced to compete with one another. But the massive U.S. energy infrastructure wasn't designed to serve as the backbone of a free market. On hot summer days when there's little or no surplus electricity in the nation's most populous regions generators can charge prices far in excess of their production costs and be confident they'll get tapped for service by grid operators who must keep the lights on at any cost. Utility holding companies that still control transmission lines have an added advantage: They can effectively lock out cheaper competitors. California Cuts Price Cap for Electricity Once Again (Aug. 2)Price Cap Is Set for Electricity That Is Sold in New England (July 27)PPL KeySpan Say Earnings Surpassed Wall Street Targets (July 27)Energy Trading Internet Operations Help Enron's Net Income Jump 30% (July 25)PG&E Posts 36% Rise in Net to $248 Million (July 21) The new regional grid operators called independent system operators or ISOs eventually will be in charge of preventing manipulation. But as nongovernmental organizations they won't have basic investigative tools like subpoena powers or the ability to impose significant penalties. FERC which does have those powers rarely uses them preferring to let the market discipline itself. A Strange Drop Sometimes it's difficult to know what constitutes an abuse of the market. In July 1999 engineers noticed that a substantial amount of power was being taken from the grid for which there was no explanation. They contacted the North American Electric Reliability Council the industry group charged by Congress with overseeing the grid since the late 1960s. After a lengthy investigation NERC determined that Cinergy Corp. a utility holding company had surreptitiously taken enough power over a three-day period about 9600 megawatt hours to light a small city for a month. Cincinnati-based Cinergy had underestimated power demands. Rather than buy electricity on the open market at ferociously high prices or cut power to Cincinnati it quietly borrowed power from the system when demand was peaking and later replaced it in the cool of the night when demand wasn't so high. James E. Rogers Cinergy's chief executive received a letter from A.R. Garfield the chairman of NERC's regional power-coordination center accusing his company of showing blatant disregard for the rules and of using the grid as a supplemental resource without regard to the reliability or integrity of the system. But Cinergy paid no fine. That's because it runs its own transmission control area and is trusted to enforce NERC's voluntary rules even when it is the violator. Smaller utilities in Cinergy's area by contrast face contractual penalties of as much as $35000 per megawatt for unilaterally borrowing from the grid a practice known as leaning on the ties. Dancing on the Edge? Mr. Garfield is still steamed about Cinergy's actions which he said removed part of the system's essential reserve needed to avoid cascading blackouts or a chain of uncontrollable outages that could darken whole sectors of the country. How fair is it that someone can dance on the edge like that and get away with it? he asks. Mr. Rogers points to old rules that permit utilities to temporarily borrow small amounts of power during emergencies. We were very careful to make sure when we leaned on the ties ... we didn't bring the whole system down he says. Nevertheless he concedes in a competitive world those rules need to be changed. The region's regulators have since gone to FERC for authority to charge borrowers for the market value of the electricity they take off the grid. Leaning on the ties is only one way fair competition is being frustrated on the country's transmission system a vast web of connections that resembles the nation's highway system before the construction of the interstates. While there are plenty of routes to get electricity from outlying power plants directly to big cities there are relatively few routes connecting regions. That makes it possible for some big companies to shut out competitors. A Snag in Transmission St. Louis-based Aquila Energy hit that snag when it tried to use a transmission corridor owned by New Orleans-based Entergy Corp. to move electricity to a buyer in East Texas. Entergy granted the request initially but then it canceled saying it didn't have sufficient space on its lines. Aquila didn't buy it. After analyzing transmission-capacity data the company argued to FERC that Entergy did have enough space on its lines and so was in effect breaking a rule that required it to provide transmission-line access when possible. Without access to Entergy's lines Aquila was forced to compensate the buyer and lost nearly $300000 on the deal. From whom did the Texas customer end up buying the power? A unit of Entergy -- and for a higher price than it would have paid Aquila. FERC said Entergy had been within its rights to restrict access in this case because it had transmission problems. But FERC found that Entergy on other occasions had hoarded transmission capacity that should have been made available to the market. Entergy declines to comment. Such scenarios are costly for consumers and they are among the reasons the electricity industry is enjoying flush times. In the second quarter just ended companies ranging from AES Corp. in Arlington Va. to Enron Corp. in Houston reported huge profit increases some as much as 50%. To be sure a lot of those profits are coming from extraordinary demand growth and a pickup in energy trading. But Sean Murphy president of Southern Energy New England a unit of Southern Cos. Atlanta Ga. worries that the industry has gotten too greedy and risks retribution. Pigs get fat but hogs get slaughtered he says. Tremendous Volatility New federal data show that average wholesale power prices have more than doubled at 14 of 17 key pricing points across the country in the past three years. By May of this year prices had risen across a broad range -- by 89% in Florida for example and by 294% in Texas. But even these increases mask the tremendous volatility that has struck all the major wholesale markets during the past year. In the case of the Midwest where prices in July 1999 hit $9000 per megawatt hour it was as if a $1.89 gallon of gas suddenly sold for $567. Prices like these have prompted growing calls for investigations into whether electric companies are gouging their customers. Some consumer groups lukewarm to deregulation in the first place now are agitating for re-regulation. Residential electricity bills have doubled in San Diego which is notable because it's the first city in the nation to be served by a utility that's buying all of its energy on the competitive market. Politicians are sounding the alarm in the Pacific Northwest. There wholesale prices peaked at a record $1300 per megawatt hour during the last week in June. Energy-intensive industries like mines and aluminum smelters are cutting back on production and temporarily laying off workers. We may be seeing too much opportunism in the market says Montana Gov. Marc Racicot. Demands by Mr. Racicot and his counterpart in Washington Gary Locke were instrumental in prompting FERC to open a national investigation in late July into possible market abuses. A Six-Month Lag One big premise on which deregulation rests is that a free flow of information will let markets police themselves and operate efficiently. But a key tool for market monitoring the data on utility Web sites used to book transmission orders is often unreliable. There's a six-month lag on the release of bidding data which are coded to mask the identities of bidders. What's more the four FERC-controlled ISOs operating in California the Middle Atlantic states New England and New York don't have the authority to compel market participants to give them internal documents like bilateral contracts and other information they don't want to hand over. Without such documents there's a lot more looking than finding says Bill Museler chief executive of the New York ISO. Even if the ISOs do find something problematic there isn't much they can do about it. The tariffs contracts and bylaws under which they operate generally prohibit them from releasing company-specific data and so exposing wrongdoers. And with the exception of California the ISOs' own board meetings are closed to the public. The reality is confidentiality rules protect the guilty says Frank Wolak a professor of economics at Stanford University and chairman of the California ISO's Market Surveillance Committee. And there are no codes of conduct to instill a sense of fair play. That can be a huge problem on hot days. In California an independent exchange runs a daily forward auction in which it tries to match the next day's anticipated demand to bids by generators. But this summer generators often have offered less power than they know will be needed so that they can submit higher bids later when the ISO is forced to pay stiffer prices for emergency power. On occasion ISO engineers have had just 40 minutes to frantically phone around and nail down suppliers knowing that if they fail they could be forced to begin rolling blackouts. The bidding strategy while legal undermines reliability and forces the ISO to do some real gymnastics says Kellan Fluckiger chief operations officer for the California ISO. Generators say they aren't to blame for the mad scramble. Utilities buying power for their customers often order less power than they really need for fear that a big order will drive up the overall market price to prohibitive levels. The only real recourse available to the ISOs is to rewrite the rules governing their local markets. But FERC is reluctant to let them meddle too often because generators are investing billions of dollars based on existing market rules. There's another reason too says Ron Rattey a veteran FERC economist who in June wrote a 10-page internal memo criticizing the agency for not doing more to ferret out unfair conduct. Every single ISO has identified strategic abuses he says. And every time the ISOs make adjustments to the rules the market participants find new ways around them. Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com and John J. Fialka at john.fialka@wsj.com | energy trading | informative | 3 |
Congressman Ose loved your letter to Sen. Dunn | ----------------- | government & politics | polite | 3 |
HR Functional - Mid-Year 2001 PRC | ----------------- | human resources | formal | 3 |
Re: First Cut at High Tech Messages | Looks good. I think you implicitly say this but I think you should make it more explicit: The continued growth of the new economy is threatened by our electricity infrastructure more than anything else. The high tech industry requires market driven solutions to reliability and pricing not the old style command and control regulated monopoly approach. Let's start getting the word out! Jeff Dasovich Sent by: Jeff Dasovich 09/26/2000 02:06 PM To: skean@enron.com Richard Shapiro/HOU/EES@EES Sue Nord/NA/Enron@Enron Margaret Carson/Corp/Enron@ENRON Rob Bradley/Corp/Enron@ENRON mpalmer@enron.com Karen Denne/Corp/Enron@ENRON Sarah Novosel/Corp/Enron@ENRON James D Steffes/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Subject: First Cut at High Tech Messages Attached is a first rough cut. Work continues but wanted to distribute for feedback. All is welcome and appreciated. | other | excited | 3 |
European Trip Report 22-30 Jan 2000 | Is Catherine working on environmental policy related to sustainability or is she working on greenhouse gas transactions . . . or both? ----------------- | personal & social | inquisitive | 3 |
Re: EBR Mtg and Pre-Mtgs. | You should plan to be there. Michael Terraso 09/22/2000 06:12 PM To: Steven Kean cc: Subject: EBR Mtg and Pre-Mtgs. Steve am I not to attend the meeting with Lay and Skilling on Oct 4? Mike ----------------- | other | casual | 3 |
Talking Points For Rep. Barton On Tauzin RTO Letter | Linda requested some background and talking points on the pending RTO letter from Chairman Tauzin to FERC that is sitting on Chairman Barton's desk TODAY for his decision whether to co-sign the letter. While we have not seen the text we are told that it is anti-RTO and may go so far as to state or imply that FERC does not have authority to do what is doing with RTOs. (We know this is the view of one of Chairman Tauzin's counsels who formerly worked for Southern Co.). Chairman Tauzin has been contacted by Entergy and the Louisiana Public Service Commission to send the letter. I spoke to Chairman Barton's staff Andy Black this afternoon and relayed our concerns. The Barton Subcommittee is now expected to mark up an electricity bill in December (per a Republican Member meeting held this morning). ACTION ITEM: Call Rep. Joe Barton (202/225-2002) TALKING POINTS: 1. Should start with something about the Dynegy/Enron transaction (it will be strange if Mr. Lay or Steve calls Chairman Barton and does not start the conversation with some reference to the transaction). 2. Mentioning the transaction naturally leads into the importance of competitive wholesale markets for power both for consumers and for the largely Texas-based marketing trading and merchant power industries. 3. We understand that Chairman Barton has been approached by Chairman Tauzin about a letter to FERC on the RTO issue. We know Chairman Barton is well aware of Enron's strong support for FERC's RTO initiatives. We respect Chairman Barton's interest in seeing to it that Congress does not abdicate its responsibility to make energy policy. 4. If as we have been lead to believe the letter states or implies that FERC does not have authority to act in the RTO arena this will be seen as a potentially destabilizing development since FERC is so far down the road of creating RTOs. 5. While we understand some in Congress and elsewhere were concerned that FERC was moving too fast as of the last FERC meeting earlier this month that is no longer true even if it ever was true. While we think RTOs should be created sooner rather than later FERC is listening to state regulators and others who had concerns. 6. A letter from congressional leaders questioning FERC's authority goes too far in the direction of those who oppose any RTOs. Furthermore it is wrong as a matter of law. The D.C. Circuit held in the gas cases and in the power cases on Order 888 that FERC has authority to address systemic discrimination which is in large part what the RTOs are all about -- a remedy for discrimination. | other | formal | 5 |
RE: Refund Cases Timelines--Confidential Atty Client Work Product | The prehearing conference in the CA case was an interesting proceeding. It= became very apparent that the ISO was primarily responsible for the delay = in producing data. The parties complained that they had not received what = the ISO had promised. The PX complained that they had received NO reliable= data from ISO (it was riddled with errors) and that they were at the same = point as at the beginning of the entire proceeding. The PX needs the ISO d= ata in order to commence generating the data that the PX itself needs to pr= oduce. In any event the new delayed schedule is a positive development. = It is noteworthy that we were able to group consideration of refunds issue= s and offsets to refunds on the same date- October 26 (previously refund te= stimony was considered first and testimony related to possible offsets to = refunds was considered on a subsequent date). This is very positive since = it reduces the chance that the proceeding will be only about refunds and th= at the offsets issue will be marginalized. Ray Alvarez | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Telephone Interview with The Enron Corp. Research Group | Ms. Crenshaw Thank you very much for the message. I am very interested in the opportunity to talk to personnel from the Research Group at Enron. Between the two days you suggest I prefer Wednesday 12/6. Considering the two-hour time difference between California and Texas 11:00 am Pacific time (1:00 pm your time) seems to be a good slot. However I am open most of the day on 12/6 so if some other time slot is prefered on your end please let me know. Thanks again. I look forward to talking to you and your colleagues. Jingming On Tue 28 Nov 2000 Shirley.Crenshaw@enron.com wrote: > Good afternoon Jingming: > > Professor Wolak forwarded your resume to the Research Group and > they would like to conduct a telephone interview with you sometime next > week at your convenience. The best days would be Tuesday 12/5 or > Wednesday 12/6. > > Please let me know which day and what time would be best for you and > they will call you. Let me know the telephone number that you wish to be > contacted at. > > The interviewers would be: > > Vince Kaminski Managing Director and Head of Research > Vasant Shanbhogue Vice President Research > Lance Cunningham Manager Research > Alex Huang Manager Research > > Look forward to hearing from you. > > Best regards > > Shirley Crenshaw > Administrative Coordinator > Enron Research Group. > 713-853-5290 > > > Jingming Marshall Yan jmyan@leland.stanford.edu Department of Economics (650)497-4045 (H) Stanford University (650)725-8914 (O) Stanford CA 94305 358C Economics Bldg If one seeks to act virtuously and attain it then what is there to repine about? -- Confucius _?OO??OOo? ?T=15xO-?? -- =14??<o=15 O?> | employment | polite | 3 |
Draft of California Contact List | Please respond to kevinscott Steve This is a draft of the contact list I promised you. There are still some typos in it. I will clean them up and get send you a draft in the morning that is ready for circulation. This list is made up of people that I know and trust. By an large I have excluded sitting pubic officials. In cases where a given organization has several useful contacts with similar knowledge I have listed just one person for now. Give me a call at your convenience and we can discuss this in great detail. Kevin 213-926-2626 - Kevin Scott - Key Contacts - Draft.doc | other | formal | 3 |
RE: ticket | 6011 3000 5062 8237 12/02 | other | neutral | 0 |
confidential (client-attorney) | ----------------- | other | confidential | 5 |
One more thing... | Please handle ----------------- | other | casual | 3 |
Energy Issues | See natural gas price article below. Our buddy Paul Carpenter has turned o= n=20 us (not to mention that he seems to be talking nonsense). How about giving= =20 him a call? ----------------- | other | casual | 3 |
Re: Request Confidential Information by FERC | Thanks. I'm on top of it. Christian Yoder 09/11/2000 08:06 AM To: Richard B Sanders/HOU/ECT@ECT Elizabeth Sager/HOU/ECT@ECT cc: Mary Hain/HOU/ECT@ECT Tim Belden/HOU/ECT@ECT Subject: Request Confidential Information by FERC Since Mary has been handling the ISO investigation I am assuming she is the point person for this one too. ---cgy ----------------- | energy infrastructure | formal | 3 |
CFTC Reauthorization | Please go ahead with preparation of the talking points. I'll give Ken a heads up. ----------------- | legal affairs | formal | 3 |
RE: Have you seen this? | Yes Thanks a lot. Vince | other | casual | 0 |
Texas energy exec says, I told you | Jeff FYI ?From the Contra Costa Times (East San Francisco Bay Area) Kevin Published Friday June 22 2001 Texas energy exec says 'I told you' POWER CRISIS ? Enron's Skilling gets pied before his speech blaming lawmakers but says he understands Californians' anger By Rick Jurgens TIMES STAFF WRITER SAN FRANCISCO -- A Texas energy executive who said his warnings were ignored by regulators who restructured California's electricity industry came to the Bay Area on Thursday to say in effect I told you so. Jeffrey Skilling chief executive of Houston-based Enron Corp. said that California wouldn't be in its current mess if regulators had followed his advice in 1994 and 1995. Regulators erred by forcing wholesale electricity transactions into the spot market so that deals could more easily be monitored Skilling said in a speech to about 100 people at the Commonwealth Club of California. They created a flawed marketplace in the name of regulatory expediency. Enron is a broker that buys and sells contracts to deliver power. Such bilateral transactions shouldn't have been banned Skilling said. Skilling said that's what he said six years ago. I probably made a pest of myself (in the restructuring hearings called by regulators) because I told them they were doing it wrong he said. They finally told me to keep quiet. On Thursday night it was Skilling's turn to be pestered. A woman threw a chocolate pie into his face before the event began. Police said Francine Cavanaugh of Oakland was arrested on suspicion of battery and released. Skilling tried to ignore protesters but said he understood why Californians facing blackouts and rising power costs were angry. He even had kind words for Gov. Gray Davis who he said was dealt a very difficult hand. Skilling became Enron's chief executive in February replacing company founder Kenneth Lay an early proponent of electricity deregulation who is close to President Bush. Enron a global energy giant with roots in the natural gas industry owns some power plants but its influence in the electricity industry reflects the rapid growth of its energy trading operation. Enron's only California generators are small wind facilities. However the company has developed power plants. Enron initiated two 750-megawatt projects that were sold to Calpine Corp. including a Pittsburg plant due to go online next month. Enron has announced plans to seek regulators' approval for a 750-megawatt power plant in Roseville in Placer County. During the first three months of 2001 Enron posted a huge jump in revenue to $50.1 billion from $13.1 billion a year ago but a much smaller gain in net income to $425 million from $338 million. Skilling himself cashed an $850000 paycheck and got a $5.6 million bonus last year. But the energy crisis has taken its toll on Enron's stock price and on Skilling who owned or held options to buy 1.9 million shares of Enron common stock at the time of the company's February proxy filing. At Thursday's closing price of $44.05 a share the stock was down more than 50 percent from its 52-week high of $90.75 in August. That proved that Enron wasn't the villain in California Skilling said. This thing in California has been bad for everybody he said. If we had anything to do with this we're the stupidest people in the world. Contact Information E-mail kevinscott@onlinemailbox.net Phone (213) 926-2626 Fax (707) 516-0019 Traditional Mail PO Box 21074 ?Los Angeles CA 90021 | other | neutral | 3 |
Re: Fwd: DRAFT RELEASE | Minor changes shown on the attached (gotta get the big guy's title right). Lisa Connolly@EES 05/06/2001 08:17 AM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron Maureen McVicker/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Subject: Fwd: DRAFT RELEASE Please see attached press release with Skilling quote in red and on top of second page. The press conference is scheduled for 3:30pm on Monday May 7. The City will need our comment by 10am Monday morning. Thanks Lisa X54840 cell - 713-569-9563. ----------------- | other | formal | 5 |
RE: Test Message | Shirley Please send me my SAP #. I need it to approve the expense report. Vince | finance | casual | 3 |
RE: P+ pricing/hedging | Zimin I shall be in California on Thu. Vince | other | casual | 0 |
null | I mentioned the need to call Gramm in the exec committee meeting today and Ken is willing to do it. The talking points ISDA sent looked fairly generic. Given Ken's relationship and the fact that he has talked to Gramm previously on the subject what should we ask Ken to cover? I'd like to give him a background document and talking points like we did last time. I will send it by fax to you Chris and would appreciate it if you could update it as appropriate. | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Hi Daddy | I love you baby. Study hard. Kean_Nora <Nora_Kean@Duchesne.org> on 05/04/2001 01:09:47 PM To: 'skean@enron.com' <skean@enron.com> cc: Subject: Hi Daddy Hi Daddy. I love you!! - Nora | personal & social | casual | 0 |
Re: Mark Freverts column for ENAs Exchange Magazine | I think it looks fine will defer to Jeff's edits. Jeannie Mandelker@ECT 09/21/2000 05:05 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron Jeff Dasovich/SFO/EES@EES Yvette Parker/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Subject: Mark Frevert's column for ENA's Exchange Magazine Steve this is the column I mentioned to you Monday. We do a column under Mark's name for ENA's customer magazine Exchange. This month's topic is California. I'd like you to read it and see if we are getting the message right. Jeff please let me know if there are errors. Once we get your comments we'll show it to Mark. Thanks Jeannie | business document | formal | 3 |
Re: RTO Orders - Grid South, SE Trans, SPP and Entergy | I'm still a junkie .... please email copies of the orders. | energy trading | casual | 3 |
RE: Trip to California | Liz Greg: Frank Wolak from Stanford will be back in the office on Tuesday August 7. I hope to set up a meeting with him and then to finalize the meeting with Prediction Co. I shall be shooting for August 23 - 24 in view of Greg's trip on the 15th and 16th. I left a message for Norman Packard telling him that I should be able to get back to him regarding the trip to Santa Fe by Tuesday this week. The first draft of the non-disclosure agreement will be ready by Tuesday or Wednesday. Have a good trip. Vince | personal & social | formal | 3 |
Energy Issues | Please see the following articles: Oakland Trib Wed 3/7: Breakthrough made in rescue of PG&E Bakersfield Californian Wed 3/7: El Paso Energy closes six valley power plants Contra Costa Times Wed 3/7: Still undecided: Who'll pay DWR for electricity SF Chron Wed 3/7: State Taxpayers In Dark on Details Of Energy Deal Sac Bee Wed 3/7: Lawmakers pitch fixes for region's energy woes Orange Co. Register Wed 3/7: Power plan called wrong LA Times - Wed 3/7: Bill to Cut Some Power Prices Stalls Sac Bee Wed 3/7: PG&E could face mutiny on outages: SMUD others may balk if utility orders summer blackouts SF Chron Wed 3/7: PUC to Decide Fate Of Utility Workers PG&E Edison want to trim costs by laying off thousands cutting service San Jose Mercury Wed 3/7: Power prices could soar during the summer SF Chron Wed 3/7: Power Plant Plans Cause Conflicts East county residents blast supervisors Contra Costa Times Wed 3/7: Supervisors set search for power plant sites Sac Bee Wed 3/7: Peter Schrag: California's $90 billion infrastructure gap Contra Costa Times Wed 3/7: PG&E power plan debated at hearing SF Chron Thurs. 3/8: State OKs 'Peaker' Power Plant at SFO / Temporary generator could be sending electricity to 50000 homes by August WSJ Thurs. 3/8: Crossed Wires: Major Kinks Emerge In Gov. Davis's Plan To Power California --- State's Outlays for Electricity May Be Hard to Recover Without Rate Increases --- Betting on Long-Term Deals ------------------------ Breakthrough made in rescue of PG&E State ready to pay $7 billion for lines By Steve Geissinger SACRAMENTO BUREAU SACRAMENTO -- Signaling a breakthrough in secret energy crisis talks the Davis administration disclosed Tuesday it may announce the framework of a pact to rescue the teetering Pacific Gas and Electric Co. next week. Things are going very well said Steve Maviglio a spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis. The state appears to be poised to pay at least $7 billion -- and possibly billions more -- for PG&E's high-voltage transmission lines as part of a deal to financially renovate the north-state utility according to sources familiar with the negotiations. But consumer advocates insisted that even the $7 billion price is too much to pay. And experts warned that a deal with PG&E will be more complex than with other utilities. PG&E representatives declined comment in keeping with their policy on the talks even though the Davis administration said an announcement could come as early as next week or the following week. The new timetable for an announcement was substantially sooner than in Davis' original forecast. Until late last week PG&E was still resisting the sale of its power grid despite the fact that Davis had announced the framework of an agreement with Southern California Edison. Davis expects to soon announce a similar deal with the San Diego Gas and Electric Co. However any such deal still would need federal approval. The investor-owned utilities trapped between high wholesale costs and lower regulated retail rates amassed nearly $13 billion in debts and were unable to buy electricity this winter. With the onset of rolling blackouts the state began brokering billions of dollars in emergency short- and long-term power purchases. Davis' strategy to ease the energy price and supply crisis includes bolstering both conservation and generation while fiscally refurbishing the nearly bankrupt utilities. As part of the rescue deal the utilities would have to drop legal actions seeking dramatically higher electricity bills environmentally shield wildlands they own sell power from their generators to Californians for the next decade and secure help with their debts from their parent companies. Together with the cash infusion from the sale of their power 26000-mile power grids the utilities would be allowed to sell bonds to raise funds and use customer money to pay them off. The state would upgrade the high-voltage lines and lease them back to the utilities for operation. In a reflection of the negotiations with the three utilities a Davis administration official said the deal with PG&E is proving to be more complex than with the other firms. Though PG&E finally agreed late last week to sell its transmission grid the utility apparently wants more than the $7 billion that Davis has offered according to sources. The figure is more than twice the book amount or the value placed on the system for purposes of accounting. And that's the markup that lured Edison into an agreement to sell its smaller portion of the transmission grid for $2.8 billion. But PG&E which fears an erosion of its economic base may be asking as much as $10 billion. Due to complexities in the state's 1996 deregulation of the industry PG&E is more likely to lose revenue than Edison as a result of selling its transmission lines according to experts. Big customers might be able to bypass the utility's remaining local distribution lines thereby eroding its customer base. Therefore the utility may view bankruptcy and sale of its transmission lines to the highest bidder as a potentially attractive alternative to selling its share of the grid to the state at too low a price. ---- El Paso Energy closes six valley power plants Filed: 03/07/2001 By CHIP POWER Californian staff writer e-mail: ppower@bakersfield.com El Paso Energy citing non-payment from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said it has shut down six cogeneration plants this week. The smaller plants produced about 175 megawatts of electricity and are located primarily in the San Joaquin Valley said company spokesman Mel Scott. A megawatt can supply power to 1000 homes. At least 10 plants have closed in the past two weeks as a result of non-payment according to the state Independent System Operator which manages most of the state's electrical distribution. The El Paso Energy plants are operated with various partners and had not been compensated for December January and February deliveries said Scott. He said he did not know the total amount due but said the plants would be closed until PG&E's credit worthiness is improved. A cogeneration plant common in oil fields simultaneously produces heat energy and electrical or mechanical power from the same fuel in the same facility. Typically it produces electricity and steam which can be deployed to enhance oil recovery. Kern County is the state's leading oil-producing county. El Paso owns or has interests in more than 40000 miles of interstate and intrastate pipeline connecting the nation's principal natural gas supply regions to the five largest consuming regions in the United States namely the Gulf Coast California the Northeast the Midwest and the Southeast. El Paso closed up 99 cents on Tuesday or 1.4 percent at $71.49. The Houston-based company's stock price has ranged between $36.31 and $75.30 in the last 52 weeks. ---- Still undecided: Who'll pay DWR for electricity By Karen Gaudette ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN FRANCISCO -- The price tag is $3.2 billion and counting for electricity bought by the state Department of Water Resources for the customers of two nearly bankrupt utilities. Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Southern California Edison and the state disagree over how the DWR eventually will be reimbursed for its purchases on the expensive last-minute power market. So do the state power regulators who have the final call over who gets the money when. Under a recent law the DWR went into the electricity-buying business to help keep the two utilities from sinking further into their $13 billion debt. The state plans to retrieve the money by selling $10 billion in revenue bonds. The utilities continue to collect ratepayer dollars on that electricity which the bill's author Assemblyman Fred Keeley D-Boulder Creek says is meant to help them begin paying down their debt. In a recent letter however DWR officials requested that the state Public Utilities Commission order that a portion of that money be diverted to the state. But after the utilities subtract the costs of generating electricity payments to environmentally friendly power plants and other expenses there is no money left from ratepayer dollars to give to the DWR without sinking further into debt PG&E spokesman Ron Low said Tuesday. If it passed along money to the DWR our undercollection would grow by about $2.4 billion by the end of the year Low said. The commission unable to agree on the best course of action left the issue untouched at its last meeting but expects to revisit the issue when it meets this morning. Commissioner Richard Bilas is proposing an alternate plan that would have the DWR set its own revenue requirements that would be passed on to ratepayers. The PUC also is expected to respond to complaints from laid-off workers and customers that layoffs by utilities to cut costs have been hurting service. Commissioner Carl Wood warned at the last meeting that failure to provide safe and reliable service could mean fines for the utilities. Representatives from electrical workers unions the PUC and the utilities were to discuss the issue Tuesday afternoon. I don't think we believe that utilities can find a way out of their problems by laying off workers said Mindy Spatt a spokeswoman with the Utility Reform Network. We think consumers deserve safe and reliable service and we think they deserve it at a reasonable price. ---- State Taxpayers In Dark on Details Of Energy Deal David Lazarus Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday March 7 2001 2001 San Francisco Chronicle Few people would purchase a car simply because the dealer said ''Trust me it's a great deal.'' Yet Gov. Gray Davis essentially is telling Californians just that about dozens of long-term power contracts. Because of confidentiality agreements with power companies the governor has revealed only scant details about the state's multibillion-dollar contracts for electricity over the next 10 years. Gov. Davis has our money and we can't see how he's spending it said Doug Heller a spokesman for the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights in Santa Monica. We've been locked out of the room. Neither Davis nor power companies would divulge specific details about the price duration or scope of individual contracts. Each cited secrecy clauses that the governor's office said had been desired by both sides. What consumers do know is this: -- California has signed 40 contracts and tentative accords valued at about $40 billion to secure enough power to light 9 million homes over the next decade. -- The average purchase price of each deal is $69 per megawatt hour -- well above the $30 to $40 charged by power generators before California's energy market went haywire last summer. -- If as is widely expected wholesale power prices fall in years ahead the state nevertheless will be locked into paying above-market rates for electricity. But it is not known which generator agreed to part with the most power at the cheapest level or the full range of the prices in concocting the $69 average. Moreover it is unclear how shrewdly the state negotiated with taxpayer money in securing power on behalf of cash-strapped utilities. These agreements are the bedrock of our long-term energy policy Davis said Monday in announcing the deals. The governor's office defended the murky nature of the contracts yesterday. It's a business transaction in which private corporate information is included said Steve Maviglio a spokesman for Davis. That's the kind of information that never gets revealed. While additional elements of the contracts will be publicized in coming months he said the contracts themselves will remain a secret. You'll never see all the details Maviglio said. This did not sit well with many observers. It's a breach of public trust said Daniel Bacon a San Francisco attorney specializing in business law. A public servant spending public money shouldn't be able to keep the spending secret. But Gary Ackerman executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum an energy-industry association in Menlo Park called confidentiality agreements a necessary evil in transactions like this. He explained that no power company would agree to a long-term contract if rival firms could learn the terms of the accord. The company would be losing too much of its competitive edge in the marketplace Ackerman said. At the same time he noted that secrecy allowed the buyer -- in this case California taxpayers -- to secure more favorable terms with individual sellers. A high price with one generator would not necessarily be sought by all power providers. Still the fact that public funds are being used makes confidentiality in this case a different matter than say Cisco Systems' quietly negotiating to take over yet another tech rival. The public is in a very awkward position said Michael Shames executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego. It has to rely on the good word and expertise of the governor and he has yet to demonstrate that he has expertise or good word in this field. Shames likened consumers to passengers in a plane being flown by a pilot without a license to fly. But what choice do we have? he asked. I don't see many other options available right now. There's the rub. No matter how bad a deal California may have cut to help meet its energy demands the alternative -- blackouts disruptions economic catastrophe -- is far far worse. On the other hand it already appears that the new contracts will not shield Californians from the threat of daily outages this summer when demand surges. Davis said only about 60 percent of the state's summertime electricity needs so far had been met. Part of the reason is that many power companies already have contracted for their output this year. Duke Energy said this was why it would not begin its nine-year contract with California until 2002 while Williams Cos. said it would only gradually increase the amount of available wattage in its 10-year contract. Both companies meanwhile will continue to profit this summer by selling into the volatile spot market where wholesale power went for as much as $1 500 per megawatt hour last year. You can't sell all your power into long-term contracts said Paula Hall- Collins a Williams spokeswoman. You save some for the spot market. Consumer groups worry that consumers will be hammered again this summer with sky-high power prices and then get nailed down the road by contracts for above-market rates. If we could look at the terms of the deals we'd see that California is being gouged for 10 years said Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. But the governor doesn't want us to see that. Ackerman of the Western Power Trading Forum said the state had gotten the best rates it could under current market conditions. California went for long-term contracts when everyone else moved in as well he said. Californians are paying a price for not acting sooner. ---- Lawmakers pitch fixes for region's energy woes By David Whitney Bee Washington Bureau (Published March 7 2001) WASHINGTON -- California members of Congress pleaded for everything from wholesale price caps to extending daylight-saving time an extra hour to help the region cope this summer with its persistent electricity shortage but none of the ideas seemed to catch fire at a House hearing Tuesday. People will die in California because of this crisis Rep. Brad Sherman a Los Angeles-area Republican warned the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Sherman testified that his idea for saving lives is to extend daylight-saving time by an extra hour so that there would be more daylight at the end of the day when power consumption surges. One of the peak demand periods for electricity occurs between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. when the sun sets and people come home from work Sherman testified. If people come home and it is light out there is less of an inclination to turn a light on. Sherman said the state Legislature has called for congressional approval for states to be given authority to extend daylight-saving time and he cited analyses by the California Energy Commission and other agencies suggesting that it could cut power consumption by 1 percent to 2 percent. Sherman who was one of about a dozen California lawmakers presenting their views on the energy squeeze drew no questions from committee leaders about what his legislation might do to everything from airline schedules to television programming if West Coast states didn't agree on the same time standard. Most of the committee's questioning was on the more popular idea proposed by several California and Western lawmakers primarily Democrats to require the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to impose caps on wholesale electricity prices that have gone wild because of a regional power shortage. Rep. Bob Filner D-San Diego charged that the price spiral has little to do with power shortages but a lot to do with a small cartel of generators bilking ratepayers. Rep. Jay Inslee D-Wash. said he brought up the idea of regional price caps with President Bush who was initially skeptical. But Inslee said that Bush warmed to the idea after being told that protections could be built into the caps so as not to discourage construction of new power plants. Upon hearing that Inslee said Bush invited him to meet with the president's Cabinet-level task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney on a national energy strategy. But Inslee said he can't get the group to meet with him. It's very disappointing Inslee said. Tuesday's hearing was part of a series the panel is holding on the California crisis so far without any emerging consensus on what if anything Congress should do. ---- Power plan called wrong Wall Street analysts say the governor's approach to the problem avoids the issue that caused the imbalance. March 7 2001 By DON THOMPSON The Associated Press SACRAMENTO California's scramble to insulate consumers from the soaring price of electricity may add to the state's power problems this summer Wall Street analysts said Tuesday. Gov. Gray Davis' emphasis on buying utilities' transmission lines and negotiating long-term power contracts to help ease their debts skirts the deep imbalance between wholesale and market rates that led to the state's power problems in the first place they said. In the long run it doesn't solve anything said Michael Worms an industry analyst for Gerard Klauer Mattison & Co. In the long run you need to send the right price signals to consumers which will create its own conservation signals. Unfortunately customers were shielded from that in California. Davis said Monday that the state's first contracts to buy electricity for two financially struggling utilities will provide only about two-thirds of the power needed on a typical summer day forcing Californians to cut power use at least 10 percent to avoid blackouts. Since early January the state has been buying one- third of the power Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers need. The two utilities denied credit by suppliers say they have lost nearly $14 billion due to soaring wholesale electricity prices that the state's industry-deregulation law says they cannot pass on to consumers. The keepers of the state power grid had enough electricity Tuesday to avoid declaring an electricity alert but have faced an almost-daily scramble for weeks due to a tight supply and high wholesale prices. Several wholesale and retail rate proposals are circulating. Among them: Free-market advocates such as Worms want an immediate end to the deregulation-imposed retail rate freeze on Edison and PG&E that will expire next year. Davis wants a Western price cap of $100 per megawatt hour on power generators he says have been prof iteering from California's short energy supply. The Bush administration and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are cool to that idea. In December FERC imposed a soft cap of $150 per megawatt hour on wholesale rates in the state and required suppliers to justify any higher prices they charge. Consumer groups such as The Utility Reform Network or TURN want regulated rates for residential and small-business customers but free-market rates for large industrial customers which sought deregulation in the first place. TURN also advocates a tiered rate structure with higher rates for consumers who use more than a reasonable amount of electricity each month. Assembly Republicans say electricity and natural-gas prices will fall naturally if the state increases supply mainly by making it easier to build plants and pipelines. Right now you're sort of sitting partially with regulation and part with the free market said Paul Fremont an analyst with Jefferies & Co. Both these systems work. It's sort of that in-between system that you have in Califor nia that doesn't appear to be working. The system discourages generators from building new power plants because they aren't guaranteed a profit and it doesn't do enough to discourage power use by consumers because the price they pay doesn't reflect the true cost of power Fremont said. I don't think people here have much faith in the market and why should they? countered TURN's Mindy Spatt. I think there are probably better ways of encouraging consumers to conserve than by gouging them. Davis insists the crisis can be resolved without raising rates for Edison and PG&E customers beyond the existing rate structure. In January state regulators imposed temporary rate hikes of 7 to 15 percent on Edison and PG&E customers. The Legislature and Davis extended the increases for up to a decade to help pay back the estimated $10 billion in power buying the state expects to do for Edison and PG&E over the next several years and finance its purchase of the power lines owned by the two companies and San Diego Gas & Electric. Rates were already scheduled to increase next year for Edison and PG&E customers. Under the 1996 deregulation law the pair's ratepayers saw a 10 percent rate reduction but only until early 2002. That rate cut will likely expire as planned Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio has said. Davis wants those rates to cover not only the traditional cost of generating transporting and distributing power but the added cost of paying off the two utilities' massive debt and buying their transmission lines said Assemblyman Fred Keeley D-Boulder Creek the Assembly's chief power negotiator. Yet Davis has indirectly addressed the rate imbalance by signing legislation that will let regulators raise consumer rates if necessary Keeley said. The governor and lawmakers are in effect spreading out rate increases over a decade by using long-term revenue bonds to buy power for the nearly bankrupt utilities said Severin Borenstein director of the University of California Energy Institute. At some point we have to deal with the reality that all of the power that we buy has to be paid for by somebody - it's either going to come from taxpayers or it's going to come from ratepayers Bor enstein said. Raising rates now would get us a lot of conservation. Davis also wants financial incentives for conservation and power-plant construction in time to make a difference this summer. Our mouths were agape at the rapid timetable Keeley said. Legislators are rushing to pass those incentives by month's end he said allowing three months for consumers and suppliers to act before the heat of summer. Among bills considered Tuesday the Senate Energy Committee approved legislation to accelerate the siting of power plants. It also was considering a proposal to restructure rates for generators that use renewable energy to provide about 30 percent of the state's electricity. ---- Bill to Cut Some Power Prices Stalls Energy: Democrats balk at varying payment levels for alternative generators. By DAN MORAIN JULIE TAMAKI Times Staff Writers SACRAMENTO--Legislation aimed at cutting prices for more than a fourth of the power consumed in California stalled Tuesday as Democrats questioned why a few alternative energy generators--some of them campaign donors--stood to receive higher payments than others. Lawmakers working to unravel California's energy mess have been negotiating for weeks in an effort to cut the price paid to more than 600 generators of alternative power by more than half to below 8 cents a kilowatt-hour. Those alternative generators' contracts with utilities have shot up in recent months because of a rise in the price of natural gas. The cash-strapped corporations have suspended or made partial payments to the generators over the last few months causing many to shut down or reduce their outputs. But even as the lawmakers reached agreement that pushed the average price to near the 8-cent level per kilowatt-hour some generators would have received higher prices under the bill by state Sen. Jim Battin (R-La Quinta). Some of the generators that stood to benefit had donated to Battin's campaigns. One--Windtec Inc.--gave Battin a $20000 campaign donation in 1999. Others contributed from $3000 and $5000 last year. Battin acknowledged that he has received campaign contributions from some wind power generators but said there is no connection between the donations and the bill's provisions. It is illegal it is unethical and it's not how I do business he said. Battin noted that 25% of the state's alternative energy producers are in his district. As Democrats on the Senate Energy Committee blocked the bill Battin warned that some alternative energy producers might react to the delay by trying to force Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric into bankruptcy. We will be the cause of bankruptcy Battin said. That prompted Energy Committee Chairwoman Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey) to retort: I'm really tired of being threatened with bankruptcy. Alternative energy producers including those that use wind solar power biomass and other means produce 27% of the energy used in California. They sell the electricity to the utilities which in turn transmit it to retail consumers. But with the utilities facing multibillion-dollar debts the alternative energy producers under contract with Edison have not been paid since November. Scores of alternative energy producers supported the measure. Edison International and the San Francisco-based consumer group the Utility Reform Network opposed it. Michael Florio of the Utility Reform group said the deal could result in higher consumer prices an Edison representative said the same thing. Battin and Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek) worked out an arrangement with many of the generators. Keeley took the lead in the early negotiations and then turned to Battin to introduce the legislation SB 47X. Rather convoluted language would have allowed higher payments to a select few generators that produce electricity from wind and biomass. Most of California's wind suppliers for instance would have received about 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. But a handful of them about half a dozen wind farms--mostly in the Palm Springs area represented by Battin--would have received 7.8 cents. Battin contends that other wind producers receive additional payments that boost them to the same level as Windtec and others that would get the higher payments. They get the same deal Battin said of the handful of generators that would benefit from the provisions he added to the bill. In California's overall energy market the amount of money that would have flowed to the favored generators is minor. But the added prices that would have been paid to the generators would have translated to at least $19 million in the next five years to be absorbed by Southern California Edison customers according to one analysis. Also Tuesday more details were disclosed about another leg of the state's effort to escape from the energy crunch--the deals with large power generators to supply electricity to California for as long as 10 years. Those arrangements were announced by Gov. Gray Davis Monday as the bedrock of California's energy policy. But some consumer advocates warned that the deals could lock the state into excessively high-priced contracts. S. David Freeman the general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Davis' negotiator said that the state guarded against that by varying the time spans of its deals. About 6000 megawatts are expected to be available this summer about one-third of the energy needed by the state Freeman said. The amount of power under contract swells until more than 9000 megawatts are contracted in 2004 half of the needed amount before dipping to 8000 megawatts in 2010. What we're doing here is what everybody said had to be done Freeman said. We deliberately bought 50% so we'd have a good mix between long-term contracts which may turn out to be somewhat higher or somewhat lower than the spot market and purchases on the spot market. ---- PG&E could face mutiny on outages: SMUD others may balk if utility orders summer blackouts By Carrie Peyton Bee Staff Writer (Published March 7 2001) Sacramento's electric utility wants out of a deal that imposes rolling blackouts locally on PG&E's command. So do a lot of other utilities. They've been writing letters lobbying lawmakers and launching informal talks with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to get off the hook before summer. Who dodges the blackout bullet is going to play out as a political hot button around the state said George Fraser head of the Northern California Power Agency a coalition of municipal utilities. In Sacramento the next volley is expected soon with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District reportedly poised to notify PG&E that it will no longer black out homes and businesses on the larger utility's command. We are absolutely trying to fight off the requirement for rolling blackouts for the Sacramento area said Linda Davis one of seven elected members of the SMUD board of directors. Saying they don't want to be dragged down by somebody else's problems two Southern California utilities have written grid operators asking to be exempted from any blackouts caused by PG&E's or Southern California Edison's financial woes. But in PG&E's view California is in an energy crisis (and) ... we're all in this together said spokesman John Nelson. The maneuvering comes amid bleak forecasts for power supplies this summer. Although Gov. Gray Davis has said conservation new power plants and moderate weather could avert blackouts officials at the Independent System Operator which runs much of California's grid expect frequent rotating outages. One consulting firm Cambridge Energy Research Associates predicts 20 hours of rolling blackouts during July and August and about 200 hours of especially intense calls for voluntary cutbacks. Before blackouts hit the jockeying over just whose lights air conditioners and assembly lines will be shut down is growing. The outcome could affect millions of people statewide. The state Public Utilities Commission is probing rolling blackout programs run by the for-profit utilities it regulates including PG&E and Edison. A PUC analysis has suggested that PG&E's program which currently exempts about 40 percent of its customers should spread the burden more broadly. For example it said 1.9 million homes and businesses are spared just because they share a circuit with a customer deemed essential. But not-for-profit utilities such as SMUD which answer to their own elected boards or city councils have other worries. Many have already lined up their power supplies for summer. Some have raised rates or are considering raising rates. Some have taken extra conservation steps. They think those preparations ought to give them leverage to ease blackout clauses in their contracts with PG&E. SMUD general manager Jan Schori is going to use every avenue ... any avenue to put pressure on including lobbying the ISO the governor and others said utility director Davis. The Northern California Power Agency a joint-powers authority that owns and operates power plants for municipal utilities has begun informal negotiations with PG&E to change blackout rules according to Fraser its top executive. It is preparing to write PG&E asking that its members be exempted from outages altogether. Failing that it wants them to face fewer outages or to be compensated for cutting off power he said. At SMUD the utility board has met in closed session to discuss exactly what it is required to do during electric emergencies under terms of the interconnection contract that links SMUD's lines to PG&E's. The contracts are being inspected with a fine-tooth comb said SMUD director Howard Posner. Schori declined to comment on any specifics. Sources indicated that the main option being considered is notifying PG&E that because of changed circumstances SMUD believes it no longer is required to routinely comply with outage requests. Other options being explored include re-negotiating existing agreements with PG&E. Posner said that ever since two days of rolling blackouts in January constituents have been asking him 'Why are we participating when we're not the problem?' And I don't have a good answer to that. Several directors said SMUD has already spent a lot of money -- and is considering 16 percent rate increases -- to ensure that it has enough electricity under contract to meet its customers' summer demands. They believe PG&E should do the same. We're almost like a David against Goliath here said board vice president Genevieve Shiroma. The huge investor-owned utilities next door have severe problems that they need to get under control. In addition SMUD plans to argue that because it can cut usage through its Peak Corps program which remotely turns off air conditioners at volunteer households it has already done its part without rotating outages director Davis said. PG&E believes the interconnection agreements that govern smaller utilities' ties to its transmission lines have benefits and burdens to both sides said Nelson. It wouldn't be fair or good policy for just one provision to be altered without taking a look at how that affects the entire contract he said. Interconnection contracts generally have clauses that require utilities to help each other out to avert greater emergencies. Sometimes reducing demand -- called load shedding -- can be the only way to stabilize the electric grid in the seconds after a major power plant or transmission line fails. It's been around in the electrical fabric forever said Jim Pope head of Silicon Valley Power Santa Clara's city-run utility. In addition to legal requirements you have a moral obligation so you don't bring the system to collapse. Like other city-run utilities Silicon Valley Power has a contract with PG&E that requires it to shed load during an electric emergency. But its contract allows it to work with big users to reduce their demand so no one has to be completely shut off. Such agreements formed long before deregulation when PG&E ran the north state's grid now are complicated by the 1997 creation of the state Independent System Operator. The ISO today runs pieces of the grid owned by PG&E Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co. If it believes power use is about to surge past supply potentially triggering a grid collapse across the western United States the ISO notifies the three utilities that they have to shed a certain number of megawatts. The big utilities meet that requirement two ways. They cut circuits to some of their own customers and they tell smaller connected utilities to cut a proportionate share. In Northern California about 80 percent of the outages are borne by PG&E customers and the rest by customers of SMUD and other municipal utilities and irrigation districts. In one sense we are all in this together. If SMUD were in danger of going down we would hope others would help us out said SMUD's Posner. But that's if we're in danger from circumstances beyond our control not from mismanagement or lack of financial wherewithal. It is unclear what penalties if any a utility would face for violating an interconnection agreement. In the long run the issue would be fought either in the courts or before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission grid officials said. As a practical matter in the seconds when the risk to the grid is greatest if one utility refused to shed load the ISO would probably solve to problem by calling on PG&E Edison or others who are willing to make deeper cutbacks they said. ---- PUC to Decide Fate Of Utility Workers PG&E Edison want to trim costs by laying off thousands cutting service Bernadette Tansey Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday March 7 2001 2001 San Francisco Chronicle State regulators are set to decide today whether debt-ridden Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison can conserve cash by laying off thousands of workers and letting service standards slip. Union officials who protested the layoffs before the California Public Utilities Commission warn that if the cuts go through neighborhoods hit by power outages could stay dark for hours and more customers could face busy signals when they call about their bills. An administrative law judge agreed advising the commission in February to order the utilities to restore 725 positions already cut and block the elimination of an additional 2125 jobs. Judge John Wong said PG&E and Edison have acknowledged the layoffs will not substantially improve their shaky financial condition which arose from skyrocketing wholesale electricity costs the utilities could not pass on to consumers under a rate cap. The savings would barely make a dent Wong said in his draft decision. The two companies together claim that their debt from power purchases amounts to more than $13 billion. PG&E says it has saved $18 million from the first wave of 325 layoffs. Wong's recommendation is already running into resistance on the PUC. Commissioner Richard Bilas said the five-member panel should not be micromanaging the utilities in a time of crisis. Bilas has proposed an alternate ruling that would allow the utilities to make the cuts but provide for PUC monitoring of service in case the commission wants to step in later. We're in a situation where the utilities are not collecting the revenues they need to operate and yet we may be guilty of not letting them cut expenses where they can cut expenses Bilas said. PG&E spokesman Jon Tremayne said savings from the layoffs are helping to keep electricity running and gas flowing. It keeps cash in our accounts so we can keep doing day-to-day business Tremayne said. In addition to the 325 positions dropped so far PG&E is proposing to cut an additional 675 during the next three to six months. The cuts affect temporary and contract workers who read meters handle new service hookups and replace equipment. PG&E has no plans to eliminate permanent positions. The company is struggling to keep up with a higher workload at its call center as customers deluge the lines with inquiries about their rising bills and the effects of deregulation. Calls to PG&E ballooned from 1.3 million in January 2000 to 2.3 million in January 2001. Bilas advocates granting PG&E's request to temporarily relax standards requiring the utility to respond swiftly to customer calls and to read customers' meters once a month. PG&E wants to read meters bimonthly and send bills based on the estimated use between readings. Discrepancies could be corrected later. Wong called those measures unacceptable. He said customers need to know immediately if their efforts to conserve power are working. Wong also said the utilities' own experts have said the workforce reductions will lengthen the time required to restore power after nonemergency equipment failure. Eric Wolfe communications director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1245 said some customers have already been left without power overnight because PG&E is trying to avoid the use of overtime on nonemergency power outages. It hurts a lineman to walk away from the job leaving a customer without power Wolfe said. Tremayne said PG&E is trying to minimize overtime costs but denied the company has allowed customers to go without power out of financial concerns. He said crews were pulled out when darkness and falling trees made the work too dangerous. ---- Power prices could soar during the summer Posted at 10:35 p.m. PST Tuesday March 6 2001 BY STEVE JOHNSON Mercury News Unless Gov. Gray Davis arranges significantly more long-term electricity contracts or persuades people to turn off a lot more lights California's unpredictable spot market for power could wreak havoc this summer. Even with the 40 long-term deals announced by Davis on Monday experts interviewed Tuesday said up to 43 percent of the state's daily needs may have to come from this highly volatile market in which power is bought within a day of need. That could could prove hugely expensive because some spot market energy has cost five to six times what it would under the long-term contracts. It's widely expected that consumers ultimately would have to pay that tab which could amount to billions of dollars. And because that power won't be locked up in contracts there is no guarantee it will be available when it's needed which could lead to blackouts according to a recent report to the California Independent System Operator which oversees three-fourths of the state's power grid. ``The situation in California could reach catastrophic proportions'' the report concluded adding that unless things change dramatically ``it is a virtual certainty that peak demand will go unmet during many hot summer days.'' Steven Maviglio Davis' press secretary conceded Tuesday that the spot market could be troublesome. ``It's a major concern'' he said which is why the state is trying to line up more power contracts speed up power plant construction and promote conservation. During the normally hot month of August peak daily demand for power in the Independent System Operator's territory is expected to hit about 47700 megawatts -- enough for nearly 48 million homes. The state's three main utility firms generate about 8200 megawatts and have long-term contracts from wind solar and other energy sources for about 11700 megawatts more. That totals about 20000 megawatts. Add in the 7000 megawatts of long-term power that Davis has announced for this summer and the state is still nearly 21000 megawatts short. Costly proposition If all that power has to be obtained on the spot market the price could be high. On Friday last-minute purchases on the market averaged $411 per megawatt-hour compared to about $150 per megawatt-hour for all power obtained by the Independent System Operator and $69 per megawatt-hour on average under Davis' long-term contracts. It's possible that not all 21000 megawatts would have to be purchased on the market. Assuming Davis is successful in getting people to save 10 percent -- which could prove difficult -- conservation could reduce peak demand by nearly 5000 megawatts. California also might be able to trade for another 5000 megawatts with the federal government's Bonneville Power Administration and a hydroelectric operator in British Columbia said Arthur O'Donnell editor of California Energy Markets a trade publication. Under such deals those two outfits often send that much power to California when they don't need it and California returns the same amount or more when its demand is low. But O'Donnell said it wasn't clear whether 5000 megawatts would be available this summer because ``they still haven't gotten the snowpack they need in the Pacific Northwest'' which could limit that region's generating capacity. Still falling short Even if those hydropower imports are available and conservation works as Davis hopes it's likely California would still require the spot market for 11000 megawatts to meet the August demand. That's more than 20 percent of the state's overall power needs. ``All of the surrounding states are buying probably less than 5 percent at most of their energy on the spot market'' said Frank Wolak a Stanford economist who monitors electricity prices for the Independent System Operator. He worries about how much that power could cost and is disturbed that state officials haven't adequately addressed the issue. ``No one has any idea what they are going to do and that is part of the problem'' he said. Officials at Pacific Gas & Electric Co. are particularly concerned. They fear that their company -- which is nearing bankruptcy -- could get stuck for much of the spot market purchases by the Independent System Operator which has threatened to bill the utilities for the cost. Fearing the annual bill for that power could hit $2.4 billion this year PG&E wants the tab sent to the Department of Water Resources which also is buying power on the spot market for the state. But the Department of Water Resources has objected to that idea and the matter is expected to be heard today by the California Public Utilities Commission. ``We're looking for clarity on a number of issues'' regarding how the spot market will work ``and certainly that's one of them'' said Thomas Hannigan the water agency's director. ``I don't think anybody knows the answer of who's going to pay for it'' added PG&E spokesman John Nelson. But Nettie Hoge executive director of the Utility Reform Network in San Francisco said she suspects consumers ultimately will foot the bill. The unfortunate likelihood about spot market purchases is that ``ratepayers are responsible for all of it eventually'' Hoge said. ``It's a very big problem.'' ---- Power Plant Plans Cause Conflicts East county residents blast supervisors Jason B. Johnson Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday March 7 2001 Industry dreams of building new power plants in east Contra Costa's hills are prompting an angry reaction among residents and elected officials who say they don't want more plants. The conflict was sparked by a vote by county supervisors yesterday to aggressively explore possible sites for new power plants throughout the county. The measure by Supervisors Mark DeSaulnier and Federal Glover which passed on a 4-to-0 vote directs the county administrator and Department of Community Development to compile a report on possible sites within 45 days. Supervisor Donna Gerber abstained after criticizing the plan for potentially repeating the same mistakes that plagued the state's energy deregulation effort by not considering how much energy the state region and county will need in future years and how much power is slated to come online. Gerber said alternative power sources such as solar should also be examined. A site drawing much attention is on top of a deposit of natural gas near the Concord Naval Weapons Station off Highway 4. The owners of 70 acres of land near the station recently formed a company Golden State Power Co. to pursue construction of at least one small peaker plant and a much larger facility capable of producing 600 megawatts. The site could hold up to three small 50-megawatt peaker plants and a larger 15-acre natural gas plant said Steve Thomas managing partner with Golden State. No land use applications have been filed. Thomas said 30 acres could be kept as open space to form a buffer around the project. Both (facilities) are state of the art said Thomas. We believe that the site is ideal. But east county residents at yesterday's meeting blasted the supervisorial measure and the power plant proposal complaining that more plants could put people's health at risk. The region already is home to six power plants. We're going to get a good dose of poor air quality and (negative) health conditions from this said Concord resident Evelyn Frietas. I think we need to stop and think about what we're doing to our quality of life. Dan Torres said the home he bought in 1995 at a new Bay Point development would be alarmingly close to the proposed Golden State site. It will be dragging emissions over our home said Torres. I didn't buy a home on that hill to be surrounded by power plants. There are six power plants in operation in east Contra Costa. Pittsburg already has two power plants and two more under construction. City Council members Frank Aiello and Yvonne Beals said the Antioch-Pittsburg area has done more than its share of energy production. Aiello said Pittsburg will soon produce enough energy to power three million homes in California. When is enough enough? asked Aiello. Pittsburg has shouldered responsibility for a land-fill and two more power plants. At some point you have to say enough. Beals said that while power plants have added millions to the city's general fund the negatives of additional plants could outweigh the benefits. I don't think that Pittsburg or east county should be the dumping ground for energy for California said Beals. ---- Supervisors set search for power plant sites The board also heard from the potential developers of a 650-megawatt plant between Bay Point and Concord By Thomas Peele TIMES STAFF WRITER MARTINEZ -- Contra Costa County supervisors took tentative steps Tuesday toward allowing the construction of at least one small power plant before summer ordering that its staff identify potential sites in unincorporated areas within seven weeks. The board voted 4-0 to search for locations. Third District Supervisor Donna Gerber abstained saying her colleagues lacked a comprehensive context'' to identify sites. I think the board knows just enough to be dangerous'' she said. Gerber said the county should examine the potential for additional power plants within its borders but not investigate individual sites yet. But Fourth District Supervisor Mark DeSaulnier said the action was necessary because of the energy crisis and because of Gov. Gray Davis' call for local governments to help speed the construction of so-called peaker plants before July and August. I wouldn't do this except under an emergency DeSaulnier said after the vote. There are unusual circumstances. We're not talking about putting this in a residential area. Fifth District Supervisor Federal Glover backed DeSaulnier but said he hoped for a location outside his heavily industrialized East County district. There's a lot of concern in East County as to the number of plants he said. DeSaulnier said though that the only logical place for a small plant remains the industrial belt'' stretching along the waterfront from West County to Antioch. He declined to provide specifics but said the only other potential site outside the industrial areas was the Concord Naval Weapons Station property. But he quickly added that he believes the U.S. Department of Defense would never go for it. Also DeSaulnier said he could not rule out the county building the plant itself and entering the electricity-selling market during peak demand times. Board Chairwoman Gayle Uilkema called that idea extremely premature and unlikely. That's a very powerful decision. I do not think we are ready'' she said. The California Energy Commission listed the Equilon refinery in Martinez as one of 32 potential peaker plant sites in the state last week. Peaker plants kick in during peak usage times. Davis called for their quick construction before the height of summer and its energy demand for air conditioning. Plants that generate as much as 50000 megawatts don't need Energy Commission approval. DeSaulnier said he believed a peaker plant could be built about a month after final approval. Supervisors also heard from the potential developers of a 650-megawatt plant between Bay Point and Concord. Walnut Creek commercial real estate developer Steve Thomas announced his intentions for the site north of Highway 4 last week. Construction could take two years. Eric Hasseltine a consultant representing Thomas and what he described as a brand new company for the site the Golden State Power Co. told supervisors that if they intended to speed peaker plant construction they should do what they can to expedite the larger plant. The Thomas site could house a peaker plant until the proposed larger one goes online. A large natural gas line passes under the site. DeSaulnier seemed cautious about the larger proposal which he had described last week as a good site. Uilkema too said she knew too little about it to comment. A resident who lives near the Thomas property asked the board to build it (the larger plant) closer to where you have industrial areas. You have to carefully consider the people who live nearby said Dan Torres 39. Evelyn Freitas of Concord said she lives downwind of the proposed site. Our air quality is going to be worse then it is now she said. Gerber played on the environmental issues saying the county already ranks second statewide to Los Angeles in volume of hazardous materials and amount of electrical generation. ---- Peter Schrag: California's $90 billion infrastructure gap (Published March 7 2001) By now California's surreal energy mess has grown from a crisis to a condition. It may not be quite as permanent as say death and taxes but it's still something that could get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Until there's more realistic pricing no gubernatorial pea-under-the-shell buyout scheme will solve it. Beyond the energy crisis however and in many ways similar to it California faces a whole range of other infrastructure problems -- in transportation in water resources and sewer systems in school and university buildings -- that seem once again to be all but forgotten. The Business Roundtable has estimated the need at roughly $90 billion though no number can possibly be exact. What's certain is that after a burst of high-level investment in public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s California's annual capital investment has sunk precipitously -- from an annual $150 per capita in the 1960s according to a set of recent studies for PPIC the Public Policy Institute of California to about $30 in the 1990s. But you probably don't need to tell anyone driving Bay Area or Los Angeles freeways or looking at the ubiquitous portable classrooms those dreary brown boxes that house a fourth of our public school students. Ever since passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 we have been flying the flag of deferred maintenance. As in the state's electricity crisis however there's no way California can effectively address those problems merely by building or bonding itself out of them. In highway construction in developing water resources in finding enough university space to accommodate the Tidal Wave II of students managing demand is likely to be as crucial to any solution as new construction. In the energy market -- and in electricity particularly -- it's been a familiar principle ever since David Roe of the Environmental Defense Fund first persuaded Pacific Gas and Electric that a dollar invested in conservation may be worth as much as the same investment in new generation. But in most other sectors of California's infrastructure state and local it's a lesson still to be learned. There have been scattered attempts to encourage conservation and reduce demand -- significant reduction in water use for example through the installation of low-flow faucets and low-flush toilets some reduction in traffic by using rush-hour diamond lanes or by adjusting highway or (as in New York) bridge tolls to levels of congestion. But as pointed out by David Dowall an urban economist at Berkeley state policy-makers have not really begun to consider how demand management strategies can be applied to infrastructure service areas or how the more efficient use of facilities and more realistic pricing -- highway tolls say or parking fees -- can reduce demand for scarce infrastructure resources. In any case says Dowall in one of the PPIC reports we should pick which major projects we will build not just according to per capita estimates of how much we need but according to how much consumers are willing to pay for them. To avoid hurting the poor congestion-related highway tolls and other tariffs can be rebated on the basis of income. University fees can be means-tested. In California they also could be adjusted to encourage summer school classes and other off-peak uses rather than (as in the past) making UC summer courses more expensive. Given the political and economic uncertainties there's no way to know how far such demand management can be taken. But there's not much doubt that as Dowall and others point out the state's infrastructure planning is a jumble of uncoordinated agency agendas and wish lists. The Legislature last year passed a bill AB 1473 by Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg that requires the governor beginning next year to submit an annual five-year infrastructure plan for state agencies and public schools along with recommendations on how to fund it. In addition Gov. Gray Davis' infrastructure commission is expected to recommend better coordination of infrastructure and land-use planning when it issues its report this spring. That would be a start. As California State Treasurer Phil Angelides has pointed out the state desperately needs to start joint planning -- regional planning -- for housing roads and other resources to reduce the need for long commutes to preserve open space and to bring jobs to where people live and housing to where the jobs are. That would itself reduce demand for more freeway lanes and equally important improve the quality of life. At present most planning for housing roads water systems and other facilities rarely recognizes the regional impact of local decisions. In the East Bay slow-growth forces push well-intended initiatives that would force more development into Tracy or Modesto and further tax the transportation systems to Silicon Valley. In city after city there are beggar-thy-neighbor efforts to grab yet another shopping mall that produces a little extra sales tax revenue for the city that gets it and that often compounds traffic and revenue problems in adjacent communities. In higher education we divide bond proceeds evenly among UC the California State University and the community colleges even though the community colleges serve eight times as many students as UC. We plan road projects according to county not regional priorities. It is all done according to antiquated political and fiscal formulas that often no longer make sense. We don't just need better capital planning we need a whole new planning system. ---- PG&E power plan debated at hearing A PUC meeting on the utility's capacity expansion project for the Tri-Valley follows weeks of protest from officials residents Power upgrade in valley debated By Megan Long TIMES STAFF WRITER SAN FRANCISCO -- Dublin officials and the developer of a Livermore subdivision faced questions Tuesday about their opposition to alternative routes of PG&E's controversial Tri-Valley power upgrade plan -- and answered by restating their long-standing objections. Tuesday's cross-examination came during the third and likely final week of the California Public Utility Commission's evidentiary hearings on the utility's $91 million Tri-Valley 2002 Capacity Increase Project. It has followed weeks of protests of PG&E's upgrade plans by officials and residents of Livermore Pleasanton Dublin and San Ramon. And before the questioning started Dublin Vice Mayor Janet Lockhart reiterated concerns about an alternative route deemed environmentally superior that would place a substation just 1000 feet north of Interstate 580 between Tassajara and Fallon roads. She said that would undermine the results of a 15-year process to plan the eastern development of the city. It's extremely important to the residents of our community to follow a plan we worked hard to produce she said. Dublin officials favor PG&E's proposed placement of the station three miles north of the freeway away from new high-tech company offices and housing developments. Besides the Dublin substation the project calls for construction of a substation in North Livermore expansion of the Pleasanton substation and installation of 23.5 miles of new lines. In response to questions from PUC Administrative Law Judge Michelle Cooke Dublin's public works director Lee Thompson confirmed that the Lin family the owner of the property where the alternative substation would go wasn't interested in selling the land to PG&E. Cooke also asked Thompson to define a discretionary permit which is how city officials said they might treat a permit for a substation. Lee said that type of permit is one the city has the right to approve or not depending on the project's impact. Eddie Peabody Dublin's community development director testified that the zoning for the Lin property accommodates uses such as commercial business research and development and light manufacturing. It would not he said be appropriate for a power substation. He said parcels within the East Dublin area that could host a station would include those zoned for public and semi-public uses including land recently bought by Oracle and Sun Microsystems for new campuses. While Dublin officials testified that one buyer of land in that area paid $86 per square foot others suggested land prices would be inflated to help make a PG&E land buy look prohibitively expensive. An executive of Centex Homes the developer of new houses near Isabel Avenue and Concannon Boulevard objected to an alternative route that would place high-voltage transmission lines overhead along Isabel and Stanley Boulevard. David Barclay president of Centex's Northern California division said that the 80-foot to 150-foot towers would have a severe visual impact on residents of the Prima tract. Ed O'Neill a lawyer for the Kottinger Ranch Homeowners Association pointed out that existing distribution lines on 50-foot poles on Isabel already mar the view for residents. The Foley family has been ranching on land south of Pleasanton city limits for years said their attorney Kennedy Richardson. The utility's project would place overhead lines and a transmission station on rolling hills that the family envisions as one day being public open space with limited development Richardson said. Lawyers for Pleasanton Livermore Kottinger Ranch and Centex are scheduled to cross-examine a PG&E engineer today about the project's routing. That testimony should be the most controversial of the hearings. Judge Cooke is expected to recommend an alignment by July to the PUC which will make the final decision. ---- NEWS State OKs 'Peaker' Power Plant at SFO / Temporary generator could be sending electricity to 50000 homes by August Marshall Wilson 03/08/2001 The San Francisco Chronicle FINAL Page A.20 (Copyright 2001) State energy officials yesterday approved plans to build a temporary electrical plant at San Francisco International Airport that should generate enough juice to power 50000 homes by August. Meeting in Sacramento the Energy Commission voted 4-0 to give the green light to the gas-fired plant. It will operate during peak summer and winter demand to help the state avoid Stage 3 power alerts and rolling blackouts. Texas-based El Paso Merchant Energy Co. won approval under a new state law mandating speedy four-month reviews of so-called peaker plants. It was the only one of seven applications statewide to win approval. The other proposals were withdrawn for various reasons. The 51-megawatt plant formally called the United Golden Gate Power Project is scheduled to be built at the northwest corner of the airport near the United Airlines maintenance center. Within the next few weeks El Paso plans to apply to build a 571- megawatt $400 million plant in the same area company spokesman Jesse Frederick said. It would undergo a separate review by state energy officials. The small peaker plant approved yesterday is to generate electricity beginning around Aug. 1 for up to three years. After the end of three years the plant would be closed or converted to a cleaner-burning system. Under state law a temporary peaker plant is permitted to spew more air pollution than a permanent plant. El Paso's temporary plant is to be built next to a co-generation plant operated by United Airlines. It would use existing connections for natural gas and water supplies and tap into existing power transmission lines. Electricity generated by the plant would be pumped into the state's electrical grid Energy Commission spokesman Gary Fay said. It would also serve as a backup for San Francisco Airport in case of a blackout. No one spoke against the proposed plant at yesterday's commission meeting. The proposal however has been criticized by area residents and environmentalists worried about air pollution. Scott Buschman a professional photographer and San Bruno resident said yesterday it was unjust that state officials 100 miles away in Sacramento approved a Texas company's proposal to put a power plant on land owned by San Francisco. The fact that they approved it without considering the public's concerns foremost air quality is very disturbing he said. Fay said the plant complies with clean-air standards. Answering the criticism about the location of yesterday's deliberation he said three hearings and several workshops were held in communities near the airport. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. ---- Crossed Wires: Major Kinks Emerge In Gov. Davis's Plan To Power California --- State's Outlays for Electricity May Be Hard to Recover Without Rate Increases --- Betting on Long-Term Deals By Wall Street Journal staff reporters Rebecca Smith Mitchel Benson and John R. Emshwiller 03/08/2001 The Wall Street Journal A1 (Copyright (c) 2001 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) SACRAMENTO Calif. -- Earlier this year Gov. Gray Davis made what may be the biggest bet in the history of the nation's biggest state: that he could tame an out-of-control electricity market and avoid devastating blackouts without busting the state's budget antagonizing its consumers or derailing his own political career. His wager is still on the table but the assumptions that underlie it are looking increasingly shaky these days. The governor has already spent around $2 billion of public money buying hugely expensive wholesale power taking over the role formerly played by the state's near-bankrupt electric utilities. And California will probably be obliged to spend billions more before its electricity market stabilizes and those utilities are restored to some semblance of financial health. Under the governor's plan California aims to recoup the money it is using to buy electricity by issuing $10 billion in bonds. That way it would still have a healthy budget surplus to finance new spending on roads schools and other public services. But there's a potentially big obstacle to this plan. The state Legislature worried about racking up billions in new debt has put limits on the size of any bond offering. In broad terms the Legislature's action would allow the state to borrow only four times as much as it can recover annually from utility customers. Right now that doesn't appear to be much. Under the current rate structure essentially set in place by California's flawed 1996 electricity-deregulation plan consumers pay far less for power than the cost of acquiring it on the wholesale market. Preliminary estimates submitted by utilities last month to the California Public Utilities Commission show the state's share of the proceeds from electricity sales this year could be as little as $241 million -- not enough to support even $1 billion in bond sales under the Legislature's formula. That would leave the state on the hook for much of the money it has already paid for power -- not to mention the billions more Gov. Davis will need to spend. That in turn raises the prospect that California's economy and its credit rating both could deteriorate significantly. But state finance officials say that based on their own projections they will be able to extract enough money to support a $10 billion bond issue. Walking a careful line between fiscal prudence and political survival Mr. Davis and others in his administration are scrambling to come up with ways to get around the legislative restrictions without raising rates for consumers. If I wanted to raise rates I could solve this problem in 20 minutes Mr. Davis says. The governor says he believes that the state can obtain enough affordable power through long-term power-supply contracts to avoid the need for a big rate increase. The billions of dollars the state hopes to borrow would be used to help pay for power until electricity prices drop as they are expected to do when new power plants come online over the next few years. The Davis administration fears that what may be its only other option -- a big increase in retail electric rates -- could prompt angry consumer groups to seek new electricity laws through a statewide ballot initiative during next year's election. That's when Mr. Davis is expected to run for a second term as governor. But trying to save California without rate increases is forcing Mr. Davis to make some colossal gambles with the state's money. State officials estimate that in the next several months California will need to spend as much as $6 billion on power purchases -- equivalent to the state's entire fiscal surplus. Mr. Davis is also looking to spend several billion more to buy the transmission assets of three investor-owned utilities in order to restore two of them to credit-worthiness. He also has announced plans to spend several hundred million dollars more on conservation programs designed to reduce demand while new power plants are being built in the state. In order to limit the state's financial exposure in the meantime the governor and his aides have in some cases ignored state law. They have threatened appointed officials who have stood in the way. And they have sharply restricted the flow of information to the public. None of those steps is expected to do much to reduce state spending on power in the coming months. In a few weeks power usage is expected to begin a sharp seasonal rise as Californians switch on their air conditioners with the coming of warmer weather. By various estimates demand during peak periods this summer could outstrip supply by 10% or several thousand megawatts. That could produce more rolling blackouts like the ones that hit Northern California earlier this year. It is also likely to put strong upward pressure on wholesale electricity prices. Steven Zimmerman managing director of Standard & Poor's Corp. says Mr. Davis and his aides don't have a lot of time to put a cap on the state's financial exposure to the crisis. The credit-rating agency has put the state on credit watch for a possible downgrade which would affect the value of all of California's outstanding public debt. Moody's Investor Service Inc. is also concerned. It said in a recent report that the power crisis could soon seriously threaten the health of the state's economy. Mr. Davis a Democrat and career politician was dealt a bad hand when he took office in 1999. The deregulation plan that sparked the state's electricity crisis was enacted under his predecessor Republican Pete Wilson. But Mr. Davis was slow to react to early signs of trouble this past summer and alarms sounded by members of the state Legislature. By the time Mr. Davis finally sprang into action earlier this year a troublesome power-supply squeeze had escalated into a crisis. In a Jan. 17 declaration of emergency the governor designated the state Department of Water Resources to take the utilities' place as the daily buyer of huge quantities of electricity. His hope: that by making the state the dominant player in California's power sector he would ease electricity producers' concerns about getting paid and give the state enough clout to negotiate lower long-term power prices. Earlier this week Mr. Davis announced final or tentative agreements with 20 power suppliers to furnish the state with a total of 8900 megawatts for periods of as long as 20 years. But the supply situation remains extremely uncertain for this summer when demand probably will top 45000 megawatts. If the state can secure enough power under contract and push down demand through aggressive conservation it might be able to squeak through the summer season. If not it will be forced to keep buying huge amounts of costly power in the cash market. Under deregulation retail electric rates were frozen for several years while wholesale-power costs were free to fluctuate. When the plan was conceived wholesale prices were low and expected to go lower. However a combination of unexpected growth in power demand and a lack of new generating capacity helped produce a supply squeeze. Average wholesale prices more than tripled last year from 1999. And in January those prices were up 10-fold from a year earlier. By then California's two biggest investor-owned utilities -- the Pacific Gas & Electric unit of PG&E Corp. and the Southern California Edison subsidiary of Edison International -- faced imminent financial collapse. They had racked up billions of dollars in wholesale power bills they couldn't afford to pay. As generators began shying away from selling to the two utilities the Clinton administration forced them to sell power into the California market an order left in place during the first weeks of the Bush administration. Still northern California was hit by rolling blackouts on several days in early January. Since then the DWR which does some electricity trading as an adjunct to its main mission of managing the state's giant system of aqueducts and reservoirs has had to learn the ins and outs of power markets on the run. It hasn't been easy. David Mills trading-floor manager for the federal Bonneville Power Administration says the water agency has at times offered to pay $50 to $100 per megawatt hour more than the available market price. They agree to prices that make you wonder says Mr. Mills whose organization markets electricity from federal dams in the Pacific Northwest. You'd at least think they'd check to see what the prevailing price is before throwing out their offer. Mr. Mills says that to cut California some slack he occasionally has instructed his traders to sell at prices lower than the DWR had offered to pay. Ray Hart the water agency deputy director responsible for the power purchasing says he isn't aware of any cases in which the DWR has overpaid. He says his team has been extremely successful by all measures. Ultimately the DWR's trading acumen is far less important than the overall arithmetic of power supply and demand in California. With the price of natural gas that feeds many of the region's generating plants at near record levels and some suppliers reluctant to sell into the troubled California market wholesale electric prices remain stubbornly high and in recent days have again been rising. The Legislature has advanced the DWR about $3 billion from the state's general fund for power purchases. Under emergency legislation passed by the Legislature and signed by Mr. Davis on Feb. 1 the general fund is to be reimbursed from a planned bond sale later this year. But under terms of the emergency law the water agency would have to wrest $2.5 billion a year in revenue from retail electricity rates in order to sell the $10 billion worth of bonds sought by Mr. Davis. Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg a Southern California Democrat says the formula was created to ensure that there would be a way to repay the bonds without draining the state's coffers. We didn't want to just open our wallets he says. According to the language of the Feb. 1 law the water agency gets what's left of revenue collected from ratepayers after the utilities pay certain of their own power-supply bills and other expenses. And in their filings with the PUC last month the utilities reckoned under their worst-case scenarios that there would be only $241 million available to the DWR this year. State officials are quietly pushing the PUC to rejigger the formula so that the water department gets more money -- even though that would clash with terms of the Feb. 1 law. Robert Miyashiro deputy director of the Department of Finance says the emergency law was drafted poorly and has led people to believe the DWR only gets the leftover money. He predicts there will be cleanup legislation. At the request of the Davis administration the PUC is considering a plan to use a different revenue-sharing formula than the one in the state law. The proposed new formula was written in close consultation with Mr. Davis's Finance Department says PUC President Loretta Lynch who supports the initiative and is hoping to rush it through. The effort has drawn some opposition. Commissioner Richard Bilas at a recent PUC meeting questioned the legality of the commission attempting to change a formula set by the Legislature. PG&E is even more emphatic since the DWR's extra money could come at the utility's expense. The formula threatens to undo the very financial protections for the utilities that [the new law] attempted to provide the utility said in a recent filing with the PUC. As politicians and regulators wrestle with that issue the Davis administration has taken a step to reduce the outflow of state cash that also seems to conflict with the Feb. 1 law. It was widely assumed that the law required the DWR to buy any electricity the state needed to keep its lights on. However on many occasions the DWR has refused to buy power on the grounds that it was too expensive citing a portion of the new law that urges the agency to hold down costs. The task of covering any remaining shortfall has passed to the California Independent System Operator which manages the state's energy grid and is charged with buying power when necessary to avert shortages. However the ISO doesn't have any power-purchasing money of its own and the major parties it would normally bill are PG&E and Edison whose inability to pay their power bills was the reason the state started buying electricity in the first place. Amid criticism of its stance from generators utilities and Wall Street the DWR says it has started covering more of the utilities' electricity costs. The water agency is now buying 95% to 99% of what California needs in a given day says the agency's Mr. Hart. But increased buying only adds to the uncertainty about the eventual tab. The state's legislative analyst Elizabeth Hill recently recommended that lawmakers hold off considering more than $2 billion in state spending on items ranging from college construction to beach cleanups because of continuing questions about the financial impact of the electricity crisis. Like others Ms. Hill complains that the governor's office and state agencies haven't been forthcoming with information. Indeed the DWR refuses to say precisely how much power it is purchasing and at what prices though it has on several occasions gone back to the Legislature for more money. State officials say that data on its purchasing activities would give suppliers an advantage in continuing electricity-supply contract talks. State Controller Kathleen Connell who is running for mayor of Los Angeles in an April election recently announced plans to post state power-spending information on her department's Web site. But within 24 hours Ms. Connell suspended that plan after discussions with senior Davis administration officials. I feel very strongly that this information should be publicly released says Ms. Connell. I just don't want to do anything that would weaken the state's effectiveness in negotiating. In an effort to more tightly control events the governor obtained legislative approval to abolish the 26-member ISO board which was made up of everyone from utility executives to representatives of consumer groups. He then appointed a new five-member board. To ensure a quick transition the California attorney general threatened the old board members with fines of as much as $5000 each if they didn't immediately relinquish their positions. All did. I was offended at the heavy-handed treatment says Karen Johanson a former ISO board member. One of the first acts of the ISO's new board was to close a meeting about the electricity crisis. The former ISO board routinely held such meetings in public. ISO attorneys say the meeting was largely designed as a private briefing for new board members and that the organization is committed to keeping its deliberations as open as possible. The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations have unsuccessfully challenged the closure in Sacramento state court. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. | other | informative | 3 |
RE: Gine Project- Briefing book sections DRAFT | I agree. I am almost through it -- and while there are improvements per our suggestions from the first draft -- there are both substantive and format problems -- i.e. it does not read very well in places aside from substance. Will fax Amr my comments on the text and leave with DC colleagues as I will be up in the Senate on RTOs this afternoon. Thanks. | project management | formal | 3 |
Re: Public Policy Contacts for California | I kept your contact list but now I can't find the CV you sent. Would you mind resending? Kevin Scott on 06/20/2001 02:02:00 PM Please respond to kevinscott@onlinemailbox.net To: Steve Kean <skean@enron.com> Jeff Skilling <jeff.skilling@enron.com> cc: Subject: Public Policy Contacts for California Jeff and Steve ? As you requested I have prepared a list of my preferred public policy contacts?for California.? It is composed of professionals from an array of public private and non-profit backgrounds.? I have worked in some capacity with?each of these people?and most I know quite well.? ? Please call me for further background. ? Kevin 213-926-2626 ? Attachment - Kevin Scott - Preferred Contacts - 6-20-01.doc | business document | formal | 3 |
Short Biography for Highlands Forum XVII Meeting | Please update my bio to include Human Resources and add some boilerplate on Enron. ----------------- | other | formal | 3 |
null | Okay so I didn't know what a DRIP is but now that I do I'm sending this to you. ----------------- | other | casual | 0 |
Confidential Information and Securities Trading | Please respond to ANDREW - 7138536278 Enron Wholesale Services - Office of the Chairman From: Mark Frevert Chairman & CEO Greg Whalley President & COO Mark Haedicke Managing Director & General Counsel Subject: Confidential Information and Securities Trading Enron Wholesale Services ('EWS') maintains official Policies and Procedures Regarding Confidential Information and Securities Trading ('Policies and Procedures') which have been revised as of November 15 2000 to reflect the new EWS structure. These policies and procedures are intended to allow us simultaneously to pursue our diverse businesses and to protect confidential information our reputation for integrity and EWS and its employees from legal liability. You are required to become familiar with and to comply with the Policies and Procedures. The newly revised Policies and Procedures are available for your review on LegalOnline the new intranet website maintained by the Enron Wholesale Services Legal Department. Please click on the attached link to access LegalOnline: You must certify your compliance with the Policies and Procedures within two weeks of your receipt of this message. The LegalOnline site will allow you to quickly and conveniently certify your compliance on-line with your SAP Personal ID number. If you have any questions concerning the Policies or Procedures please call Lance Schuler at extension 3-5419 Mark Haedicke at extension 3-6544 Alan Aronowitz at extension 3-3214 Bob Bruce at extension 5-7780 or Donna Lowry at extension 3-1939. | other | formal | 5 |
Transatlantic meetings | fyi ----------------- | other | casual | 0 |
Confidential Information and Securities Trading | To:HAEDICKE MARK - 7138536544 ? Enron Wholesale Services - Office of the Chairman ? From:??Mark Frevert Chairman & CEO ??????Greg Whalley President & COO ??????Mark Haedicke Managing Director & General Counsel ? Subject:??Confidential Information and Securities Trading ? Enron Wholesale Services ('EWS') maintains official Policies and Procedures Regarding Confidential Information and Securities Trading ('Policies and Procedures') which have been revised as of November 15 2000 to reflect the new EWS structure. These policies and procedures are intended to allow us simultaneously to pursue our diverse businesses and to protect confidential information our reputation for integrity and EWS and its employees from legal liability. ? You are required to become familiar with and to comply with the Policies and Procedures. The newly revised Policies and Procedures are available for your review on LegalOnline the new intranet website maintained by the Enron Wholesale Services Legal Department. Please click on the attached link to access LegalOnline: ? ? You must certify your compliance with the Policies and Procedures within two weeks of your receipt of this message. The LegalOnline site will allow you to quickly and conveniently certify your compliance on-line with your SAP Personal ID number. If you have any questions concerning the Policies or Procedures please call Lance Schuler at extension 3-5419 Mark Haedicke at extension 3-6544 Alan Aronowitz at extension 3-3214 Bob Bruce at extension 5-7780 or Donna Lowry at extension 3-1939. | other | formal | 5 |
Lockyer Fires Earthy Attack at Energy Exec | Jeff =20 FYI - Strong and colorful words from a powerful man. =20 Given Lockyer's abilities position and and ambition I would advise build= ing bridges and mending fences while this is still at the taunting stage. = He wants your attention. Knowing him I'd say that a direct and friendly= call from you or Ken today followed by a meeting would go a long way. =20 Kevin 213-926-2626 =20 =20 [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] News Politics Entertainment music = movies art TV restaurants [IMAGE] Business Travel Marketplace jo= bs homes cars rentals classifieds [IMAGE] Sports Commentary Shop= ping [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] California= [IMAGE] [IMAGE] TOP STORIES * Bishop Asked to Quit for Defying Churc= h * Wide-Ranging Debate Reveals Much Accord * Limit on New Sea Wall= s Urged MORE [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] STORIES BY DATE FOR THIS SECT= ION 5/23 | 5/22 | 5/21 | 5/20 | 5/19 | 5/18 | 5/17 [IMAGE] = DAILY SECTIONS Front Page A Section California [IMAGE] Business = Sports Calendar [IMAGE] So. Cal. Living EditorialsLetters Op/Ed W= EEKLY SECTIONS Health Food [IMAGE] Tech Times [IMAGE] Highway 1 = SUNDAY SECTIONS Book Review Opinion Real Estate [IMAGE] Calendar Mag= azine Travel [IMAGE] TV Times Work Place [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [= IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] Marketplace Find a home car rental job = pet merchandise boat plane or RV classifieds Place an Ad [IMAG= E] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] L.A. Times Subscription Ser= vices Subscribe Change of Address Vacation Stops Suspend Delivery = College Discount Gift Subscriptions Mail Subscriptions FAQ [IMAG= E] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] Print Ads from the Newspape= r See this week's ads [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] Print Edition Oran= ge County Valley Ventura County National Community Papers [IMAG= E] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] Books Columnists Crossword Education = Food Health Highway Horoscope Lottery Magazine Obituaries Readi= ng by Real Estate Religion Science So.Cal. Living Special Report= s Sunday Opinion Tech Times Times Poll Traffic Weather Workplace SI= TE MAP [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] SHOP 'TIL YOUR LAPTOP DROPS [IMA= GE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] Shopping [IMAGE] Search Prod= ucts Stores [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] [IMAGE] = =09[IMAGE]=09[IMAGE] Wednesday May 23 2001 | [IMAGE]Print this story [I= MAGE] Lockyer Fires Earthy Attack at Energy Exec By JENIFER WARREN Ti= mes Staff Writer SACRAMENTO--In a dramatic escalation of energy cr= isis rhetoric California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer this week suggested the = chairman of a Houston-based power company should be locked in a prison cel= l with an amorous tattooed inmate named Spike. Lockyer who is inve= stigating whether energy firms have manipulated prices on the wholesale el= ectricity market made the comment in an interview with the Wall Street Jo= urnal that appeared Tuesday. I would love to personally escort [En= ron Corp. Chairman Kenneth] Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share wit= h a tattooed dude who says 'Hi my name is Spike honey' Lockyer said. = Enron spokesman Mark Palmer called the comment counterproductive rh= etoric that does not merit a response. But other industry repres= entatives denounced the remark as outrageous especially because neither= Lockyer's office nor any investigative panel has filed charges against En= ron or other companies. You'd expect that the state's chief legal c= ounsel would file charges first and make public statements second said G= ary Ackerman of the Western Power Trading Forum an association of energy = producers and traders. We're very disappointed with his choice of words = which don't exactly fit the profile of his office. In an interview = Tuesday Lockyer said he decided to ratchet up the commentary to put [e= nergy companies] on notice that we are not afraid of them and have the w= ill to prosecute. What I'm trying to do is let these economic buc= caneers understand that if we catch them they're going to be prosecuted= Lockyer said. Just because they're multimillionaires and run big corpora= tions it doesn't provide them with immunity. The attorney general = is investigating whether power company officials tried to maximize profits= through illegal manipulation of prices on the wholesale energy market. S= everal panels including a state Senate committee and the California Publi= c Utilities Commission are conducting similar probes. On Tuesday L= ockyer announced that three power companies have agreed to turn over docum= ents subpoenaed months ago by his investigators. The attorney general went= to court to obtain the documents after the companies failed to meet a Mar= ch 19 deadline to hand them over. Lockyer said the forthcoming docu= ments would help his office as it sifts through mountains of evidence in s= earch of possible violations of antitrust or unfair business practice laws= . Evidence is accumulating that certainly infers illegal activity= Lockyer said. But we need to make sure it's compelling and clear enough = that you can convince a jury. Lockyer said he singled out Enron's = chairman because the Houston company is the world's largest energy trader. = At least one observer found Lockyer's comments refreshingly candid.= Harry Snyder a senior advocate of Consumers Union said Let Lockyer be= Lockyer. * * * Times staff writer Dan Morain contributed to this s= tory. Search the archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories = about: Bill Lockyer Enron Corp Kenneth L Lay Utilitiy Rates En= ergy - California Utilities - California Electricity . You will not = be charged to look for stories only to retrieve one. =09 News Politics Entertainment music movies art TV restaurants = [IMAGE] Business Travel Marketplace jobs homes cars rentals cla= ssifieds [IMAGE] Sports Commentary Shopping [IMAGE] =09[IMAGE]=09 G= et Copyright Clearance Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times Click for permi= ssion to reprint (PRC# 1.528.2001_000043205) =09 [IMAGE] =09 | media & press | casual | 3 |
Barton,Tauzin letter to Gov. Davis | ----------------- | government & politics | neutral | 3 |
Re: FERC course on for Thurs, July 26, 1-4 p.m. | Great news. With respect to the Commissoners I think it makes sense to go back through Ellen and ask if she could set up meetings with a few commissioners ater the staff briefing. wgramm <wgramm@osf1.gmu.edu> on 07/17/2001 03:23:19 PM Please respond to <wgramm@osf1.gmu.edu> To: Jerry Ellig <jellig@gmu.edu> Steve Kean <skean@enron.com> cc: Susan Dudley <SDudley@gmu.edu> Subject: FERC course on for Thurs July 26 1-4 p.m. Susan got it done -- it'll be Thursday July 26 1-4 p.m. at FERC (a room on the 3rd floor?). Susan has talked with Bill Albrecht. He'll probably be coming in on Wed. p.m. Steve any ideas about a Commissioner strategy? (invite them to attend if the FERC folks agree ask the FERC folks to do the inviting ask the FERC folks to help set up meetings afterwards or a follow on if they like what we do and think it useful for Commissioners try to do a walkaround -- that is offer to have Jerry Bill Susan visit commissioners individually Friday a.m. after the course or Thursday a.m. before the course?) Wendy Wendy Gramm Regulatory Studies Program Mercatus Center George Mason University 703-993-4884 | energy infrastructure | formal | 3 |
Bloomberg story | Any follow up questions or India press about the bloomeberg story I sent you yesterday? | media & press | formal | 3 |
Confidential issues | As requested I investigated potential government approvals or potential political interventions if India assets/investments are sold. My understanding from the India CFO (in response to my query about approvals necessary for any sell-down like we are working on for Dabhol) is that it depends to whom we sell. If we sell to an Indian company then the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) must approve taking dollars out of India. If a sale is made outside India no Indian approvals are necessary. There are however many other approvals that would need to be obtained -- specifically from lenders and counterparties pursuant to project documents. I have not analyzed these financial-related approvals. | other | formal | 3 |
Re: executives | Jeff Shankman (COO of Enron Global Markets) is interested in going and would like to see the schedule. I told him you would send it to him. Jeff can also help us get our message across on the problems in California's power markets (Dasovich can fill you in). Also John ( Woody) Wodraska managing director of Azurix is interested in attending. Please get in touch with him. I haven't heard from Stan yet. Susan M Landwehr 08/07/2000 10:26 PM To: Richard Shapiro/HOU/EES@EES cc: Elizabeth Linnell/HOU/EES@EES Steven J Kean/HOU/EES@EES Joe Hillings/Corp/Enron@Enron Carolyn Cooney/Corp/Enron@Enron Subject: executives Rick--just a reminder that I am not aware of anyone from the executive ranks that are interested in attending the democrat convention at this point. I believe that you and Steve Kean had asked the question about both conventions to those folks but I wanted to make sure that we had covered the bases. Stan Horton is the president of INGAA this year and they are having an event on Sunday the 13th but I have not been made aware of whether he will be attending and whether he would be interested in partcipating in any of Enron's other events. | other | formal | 3 |
Something to shoot at--California | ----------------- | other | casual | 0 |
Confidential Memo For Thursday Meeting | null | other | formal | 3 |
Re: VP Candidate Greg Shea | OK by me. From: John J on 04/30/2001 11:30 AM Sent by: Kimberly Hillis/ENRON@enronXgate To: Wade Joannie Williamson/Corp/Enron@ENRON Cliff Baxter/ENRON@enronXgate James A Hughes/ENRON@enronXgate Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron Mike McConnell/HOU/ECT@ECT Rebecca McDonald/ENRON@enronXgate Mark Metts/Enron@EnronXGate Stephanie Harris/ENRON@enronXgate Maureen McVicker/NA/Enron@Enron Loretta Brelsford/ENRON@enronXgate Dolores Fisher/Enron@EnronXGate Sherri Sera/Corp/Enron@ENRON Jana L Connie Blackwood/ENRON@enronXgate Mrudula Cliff Baxter/ENRON@enronXgate Mark Frevert/ENRON@enronXgate Nicki Daw/ENRON@enronXgate Lucy Marshall/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Kathy McMahon/NA/Enron@Enron Jeremy Blachman/HOU/EES@EES Philippe A Bibi/ENRON@enronXgate Raymond Bowen/ENRON@enronXgate Michael R Brown/LON/ECT@ECT Harold G Buchanan/HOU/EES@EES Rick Buy/ENRON@enronXgate Richard Causey/Corp/Enron@ENRON David Cox/Enron Communications@Enron Communications David W Delainey/HOU/EES@EES James Derrick/ENRON@enronXgate Steve Elliott/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Andrew S Fastow/ENRON@enronXgate Ben Glisan/HOU/ECT@ECT Kevin Hannon/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Rod Hayslett/ENRON@enronXgate Stanley Horton/Corp/Enron@Enron Louise Kitchen/HOU/ECT@ECT Mark Koenig/Corp/Enron@ENRON Kenneth Lay/Corp/Enron@ENRON Dan Leff/HOU/EES@EES Danny McCarty/ET&S/Enron@Enron Jeffrey McMahon/ENRON@enronXgate Mark S Muller/HOU/EES@EES Cindy Olson/Corp/Enron@ENRON Lou L Pai/HOU/EES@EES Ken Rice/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Matthew Scrimshaw/LON/ECT@ECT Jeffrey A Shankman/ENRON@enronXgate Jeffrey Sherrick/ENRON@enronXgate John Sherriff/LON/ECT@ECT Jeff Skilling/Corp/Enron@ENRON Marty Sunde/HOU/EES@EES Greg Whalley/HOU/ECT@ECT Thomas E White/HOU/EES@EES G G Garcia/ENRON@enronXgate Susan Skarness/ENRON@enronXgate Karen K Heathman/ENRON@enronXgate Sharron Westbrook/Corp/Enron@ENRON Kay Chapman/HOU/EES@EES Bridget Maronge/ENRON@enronXgate Inez Dauterive/HOU/ECT@ECT Carol Ann Brown/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Cindy Stark/Corp/Enron@ENRON Rosalee Fleming/Corp/Enron@ENRON Tori L Wells/HOU/ECT@ECT Cathy Phillips/HOU/ECT@ECT Sue Ford/ENRON@enronXgate Karen Owens/HOU/EES@EES Dorothy Dalton/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Mercedes Estrada/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Christina Grow/ENRON@enronXgate Lauren Urquhart/LON/ECT@ECT Laura Taylor/ENRON@enronxgate Judy G Smith/HOU/EES@EES Suzanne Danz/Corp/Enron@ENRON Peggy McCurley/ENRON@enronXgate Marsha Schiller/ENRON@enronXgate Tammie Schoppe/HOU/ECT@ECT Kimberly Hillis/ENRON@enronXgate Jennifer Burns/ENRON@enronXgate Sharon Dick/HOU/EES@EES Beverly Aden/HOU/EES@EES Kathy Dodgen/HOU/EES@EES Leah Rijo/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Kathy Campos/ENRON@enronXgate Julie Armstrong/Corp/Enron@ENRON Kelly Johnson/Corp/Enron@ENRON Rebecca Carter/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Subject: VP Candidate Greg Shea I would like to pursue an offer to Mr. Shea prior to the next Executive Committee meeting on May 7 2001. Please forward your comments or questions by Tuesday May 1 2001 so that I can extend the offer by Wednesday May 2 2001. You will find attached the recommendation letter and his resume. Regards John Lavorato Tammie Schoppe on behalf of John Lavorato. | other | formal | 5 |
[Second Delivery: WPTF Friday Amen Burrito] | Sorry about this gang but my new computer messed up the e-mail list. It's 4 am and I think I have fixed it. Maybe. Bear with me if you are getting this for the second time this morning. gba X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 Message-ID: <398A81DA.E883D290@idt.net> Date: Fri 04 Aug 2000 01:42:26 -0700 From: Gary Ackerman <foothi19@idt.net> Reply-To: foothi19@idt.net Organization: Foothill Services X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.74C-CCK-MCD {C-UDP EBM-APPLE} (Macintosh U PPC) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: webmaster <charlotte@wptf.org> Subject: WPTF Friday Amen Burrito Content-Type: multipart/alternative THE FRIDAY BURRITO ...more fun than a fortune cookie and at least as accurate. Everyone is getting into the act. When I started this gig I was the only guy in town writing to folks like you about the power industry in California. I wrote about what?s new what?s happening and all the important stuff. This week Governor Gray Davis decided to write his own Burrito. His epistle got more press than mine but why is he muscling in on my turf? Not to be outdone PUC President Loretta Lynch released a report which looks into every facet of California?s power business. No stone left unturned. I?m telling you there isn?t enough room in this business for all of us. They need to clear out. With people like Herr (Hair?) Peace Governor I?m-Not Mr.-Rogers Davis and Let?s Do Lynch who needs a Friday Burrito? They re-define our reality each week with mind-numbing aplomb. For example starting in early June the PX was ordered to compete for business against other Qualified Trading Vehicles. Then two weeks later the Energy F_hrer legislated that idea to an early death which kept the status quo for at least one year. This week the PUC approved 5-year bilateral deals for PG&E and SCE thereby opening the PX to competition and emasculating the PX?s Block Forward Market. Zip bam boom. I can?t wait to see what next week will bring. I hear Senator Bowen is holding Committee hearings on re regulating the industry and the Governor?s new Energy Security Council will meet to decide six things: What?s for lunch? Who will sit at the head of the table? Does anyone have good seats for next week?s Democratic convention? Is there anyone we haven?t indicted yet in the power industry? Who will crank up the air conditioning in this room? It?s getting too warm. Then they will collect data from innocent businesses under subpoena ignore the facts and publish a report. It makes one want to take a deep breath and inhale the scented fumes of democracy. You know I can?t think about where to begin so let?s start somewhere. >>> Things on the Island of California @@@ Is there anyone left at SDG&E with a brain? @@@ The PUC issues its scathing report @@@ The ISO invokes $250 price caps. Duh! >>> Things at the throne of FERC @@@ Amen for the Morgan Stanley Order >>> Odds and Ends (_!_) >>> Things on the Island of California @@@ Is there anyone left at SDG&E with a brain? Well the answer very clearly is no. I have been astounded by repeated attempts of SDG&E?s most senior people to ape humans but instead they mimic apes. Consider the following. First they waltz their default customers into the summer with little of no protection from price spikes in the wholesale market. Forgivable in that it is human to err. The prices skyrocket in June and they start looking for who to blame. _Must be them damn independent generatorsO say their managers. Gary Cotton informs the ISO Governing Board that hedging SDG&E?s position in the Block Forward Market wouldn?t have made any difference. There?s one nobel laureate who missed his prime. Next under pressure they ask for help from suppliers and anyone else who will assist the utility and their customers. Nine offers show up at their table and they can?t choose any of them. Again Mr Cotton tells his fellow ISO Governing Board members that these things take time and we don?t to rush since there are many legislative barriers and well the surfing was good this week so why spoil it? Now they are in a panic because the Energy F_hrer is visiting old ladies living in trailer parks advising them not to pay their SDG&E electricity bill and to continue to operate their air conditioners. SDG&E puts a full page ad in the local newspaper telling everyone that SDG&E is doing everything it can to lower their electric bills including asking the ISO for a $250 price cap but the public can help by calling the ISO [address and phone number provided in the ad] and urging them to lower the cap. I always thought the location of the ISO was a State secret for security reasons. No secrets in San Diego. But we are not done. No sir we are not. Those buffalo heads who run that company decide they will win a gold star on their collective foreheads and implement one of the four resolutions passed by the Electric Oversight Board. The one they pick is to petition FERC on an expedited basis to cap at $250 the price at which sellers may bid energy or ancillary services into the ISO and the PX. The primary reason is that Western power markets are not workably competitive. In other words they want FERC to set a max price on what generators can sell in addition to the price limit at which the ISO can buy! What I find most astounding about this double talk is that SDG&E continues to collect tons of money from the sales of regulatory must run energy into the PX. These are sales from their stranded assets. Their grief hasn?t abated their greed. So to recap SDG&E missed the boat on price hedging failed to win consumer confidence in public meetings asked for help from suppliers and did nothing in response then filed at FERC to cap the sale price because the wholesale market into which they sell (over-priced?) energy is not workably competitive. Too much time in the direct sun light. >>> Things on the Island of California @@@ The PUC issues its scathing report The PUC report released yesterday is a gem with which I have not spent enough time. I only read the Executive Summary and that only because our counsel Dan Douglass forwarded me a copy. Let me pick out some of the gems in President Lets Do Lynch?s burrito. I would recommend reading the whole text if you have time and if you seek perverse entertainment. _California is experiencing major problems with electricity supply and pricing caused by policies and procedures adopted over the past ten years. _ Since June wholesale prices for electrical power in California have increased on average 270% over the same period in 1999 resulting in over $1 billion in excess payments for electricity. _Hot weather aging power plant and transmission infrastructure and dysfunctional bidding behavior in the wholesale power markets combined to drive prices up ... _Because of serious market defects and tight supply of electricity purchasers of California power will likely pay billions more in electricity costs this year. Moreover these price increases do not necessarily fund new investments in electricity supply or delivery reliability - they may flow solely to power producer profit margins. _Despite the Electricity Oversight Board's legislative mandate to oversee those institutions we have been unable to obtain [bid] data. Nevertheless ... we believe enough evidence of questionable behavior exists that the Attorney General should conduct an investigation into these statewide market practices coordinating with other State agencies including the PUC and the EOB. Such an investigation would provide the factual foundation that California policy makers and regulators need to recover any illegally obtained profits. _A momentous consequence of California's attempt to create a market in electricity is that the federal government now regulates California's electric system. Washington D.C. now controls pricing decisions directly at the wholesale level and indirectly at the retail level and to the extent that supply incentives are correlated to prices Washington D.C. now affects California's ability to attract new investment in power plants. _Past administrations' willingness to cede the State's authority to the federal government combined with the legislative creation of two non-public supervisory organizations that have no duty to protect the public or consider the retail customer. The Independent System Operator (ISO) and the Power Exchange (PX) the nonprofit private corporations that operate the State's transmission system and control wholesale pricing policies are governed by boards whose members can have serious conflicts of interest. Some of these board members or their companies financially benefit from higher prices in electricity markets. Neither of these private organizations is accountable to the State or its consumers .... _Despite the federalization and the fragmentation of the State's electric services the State of California should protect its businesses and consumers from cartel pricing collusive behavior inadequate power plant maintenance and lack of market planning for adequate electricity supplies. _California consumers and businesses deserve to know in advance - as San Diegans did not this summer - how and when the price of an essential service like electricity will double. California is now largely constrained by federal mandates from providing comprehensive retail price relief as long as wholesale prices remain so high. If California tried to re-impose a price freeze in San Diego now federal regulators would likely prevent that action. ... Short-term price relief however cannot resolve market gaming or fundamental wholesale pricing problems controlled by federal regulators. _We have been precluded from obtaining the data necessary to know if the ISO and PX failed to detect manipulation and gaming on several fronts. We do not know how market players acted in price offering and bidding and scheduling. The FERC has just announced an inquiry into national pricing and energy market issues. California should not wait for national findings before it investigates California market practices. We recommend that the California Attorney General immediately subpoena relevant records and data to determine the pricing and offering behavior of market participants the actions of the ISO and its board members and the actions of generators in supplying California's energy needs. _Ten Actions to Consider or Act Upon to Prevent Current Electricity Problems From Spreading in 2001: ... 2. Create a California Energy Council modeled on the National Security Council to unify State action to resolve energy problems and to perform integrated energy planning 3. Ask FERC for extended wholesale price cap authority to moderate California wholesale market pricing 4. Ask FERC to recognize the defects in the California and western regional markets and find that no competitive market exists in California power markets ... 8. Eliminate potential conflicts of interest in ISO/PX stakeholder boards 9. Improve California's ability to obtain ISO and generator data and enhance the State's enforcement capability for power plant maintenance price manipulation and generation gaming consistent with protection of proprietary business information 10. Provide the EOB with effective enforcement ability and additional oversight authority for the ISO and PX. _Ten Issues to Consider or Act Upon Within the Next Six Months: ... 4. Streamline state power plant siting procedures consistent with environmental requirements and prioritize applications to advance clean BACT+ power plant proposals. 5. Institute use-it -or- lose-it permitting power plant licensing and emissions credits rules to ensure power plants get built ... 8. Reform PX pricing protocols and structures to lower wholesale and retail prices and reduce excess profitsO I told you I don?t need to write a Burrito anymore. The Democrats in Sacramento are doing that for me. Welcome comrade. >>> Things on the Island of California @@@ The ISO invokes $250 price caps. Duh! It is really hard to describe the drama of an ISO Governing Board meeting especially when our favorite topic arises. It seems the only time the Board becomes animated is when one of three issues are on the agenda: price caps FTRs and priorities for software enhancements. Otherwise its pretty much hum-drum. %Round and %round we went once again. A few more forced votes tipped the scale in favor of the cap. There were 15 yes votes which included a forced yes vote from our friend Jerry Toenyes by order of Secretary of Energy Mr. Richardson. [Jerry did you realize that the last letters of your name could be re-arranged to spell _NO ET YESO? Kind of a french thing.] I?m sorry about that vote Jerry. You still go in my book as one of the brave and bold for standing up to that sort of intimidation for so long. Your picture in the SF Chron said it all. The brave souls who stood tall and voted NO included David Parquet (Enron) Jan Smutny-Jones (IEP) Barbara Barkovich (CLECA) Caolyn Kehrein (CMA) Dan Kirshner (EDF) and Stacy Roscoe (Procter & Gamble). Now I must admit that Dynegy?s Greg Blue did help by voting a Texas No spelled _A-B-S-T-A-I-NO. I have instructed Dynegy trader Dave Francis in Houston to work with Greg to correct that problem. We?re going to work things out. The Energy F_hrer addressed the Board again. I didn?t mind that I only had a few brief very brief moments to address the Board and Herr (Hair?) Peace got over 20 minutes. That didn?t bother me at all. He did more damage to himself in 20 than I could do in 2. He blasted away at everyone who opposed him. He pined about Camden quitting the Board. He said he knew how prices and markets work that it isn?t the way those academic egg-head FERC-loving economists tell you who pray to the gods of competition. He lambasted WAPA for withholding generation to protect fish and wildlife (what was that all about?). He predicted that on Thursday?s PUC meeting he and all the other powerful Democrats Republicans and angry citizens of San Diego would demand that the PUC impose a rate cap on retail electric rates in San Diego that are just and reasonable (it didn?t happen). And on and on and on. This man is very delusional. He believes that Steve and only Steve Peace can save the world. He believes that political will trumps judicial quasi-judicial or independent Board actions. This man makes relevant all the abstract musings of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) ... The will to power the ?bermensch the transvaluation of values etc. But we are getting under (uber?) his skin with the help of the press. Wednesday afternoon I called Commissioner Dick Bilas to see if he thought whether the next day?s PUC meeting was going to be a roll over. Dick said he got a call from Peace and that Peace said he would not come to the meeting. Apparently Peace had received a lot of press and all of it bad. That?s the thin line of freedom which keeps tyranny at least one step away from our front door. >>> Things at the throne of FERC @@@ Amen for the Morgan Stanley Order And now the good news. You deserve this. FERC gave the California market a little wiggle room last Friday. FERC issued a last minute reply to the complaint by Morgan Stanley Capital Group relating to the ISO?s intent to lower the price cap. FERC denied the complaint but they didn?t waste time with an Order to simply deny a complaint. FERC danced on the head of the ISO and pulled the bite out of the price cap. Here are some excerpts: _We accepted this [Amendment 21] not because it was a cap on sellers? prices but because it would promote order and transparency in the market by clearly telling sellers of the maximum price the ISO was willing to pay and allowing sellers to make informed economic choices on whether to sell in the ISO market or to sell elsewhere... _ ... The ISO has no more or less ability to procure capacity and energy than any other buyer of these services ... If the ISO is unable to elicit sufficient supplies at or below its announced purchase price ceiling (because generators are free to sell elsewhere if they choose) it will have to raise its purchase price to the level necessary to meet its needs. ... Therefore an increase in out-of-market (OOM) calls for generation may be necessary to maintain system reliability. Because the current payment for OOM is not subject to a maximum purchase price the resulting overall payments may be higher. _To the extent the ... ISO Board resolution contemplates implementing a directive that generators must bid their capacity into the ISO markets under any circumstances (e.g. when system load exceeds 38000 MW) such a requirement is not permitted by our ... Order and the ISO tariff. ... Future implementation of the ISO Board resolution with regard to a requirement to sell would require significant revisions to the ISO market rules. Such market changes could not become effective absent a corresponding amendment to the ISO tariff which would have to be filed under section 205 of the FPA.O Well. What do you think about that? Just wait. Here is what the sleeping bear Commissioner Hebert said in his concurring remarks: _Getting to the bottom of the problem in my view requires us to begin a proceeding to rescind our approval of the ISO as the operator of the California grid. The record supports such a move. ... A memorandum to the ISO from a stakeholder who resigned from the governing board eloquently brings to our attention repeated attempts to undermine the independence of the ISO. The memorandum also thoughtfully outlines consequences to the markets of a return to %command and control.? _Because these allegations come from a non-market participant especially should we take heed. We must also take notice of the public pressure on the Board to compromise its independence.O Amen brother amen. >>> Odds and Ends (_!_) As you can imagine this week like an endless string of weeks before this has been interminable. I get about three phone calls a day from press reporters very little of which ever sees print. My shtick is just too complex for casual readers. But I do notice that the reporters are asking better questions. The public is becoming more savvy. The information flow is moving in our favor and will disarm the forces of evil in about 10 years. I have other problems on my mind. I am working on a new computer system. Really it?s just an upgrade of an older computer that is a bit faster than the laptop I tried to upgrade very unsuccessfully. As a result of the all the new hardware and software I purchased my office looks like a war zone with an odd mix of PUC service copies computer documentation and diskettes laying all around. Quite a mess. Prepare for the future. Our next general meeting is scheduled for Thursday and Friday October 5 and 6 at Moro Bay. Barb Ennis will prepare a blurb for us in next week?s Burrito about room reservations timing golf etc. Our guest speakers will include MSC Chairman Professor Frank Wolak who will talk on the subject of his choice Ms. Irene Moosen of Grueneich Resource Advocates who will make a presentation on the distributed generation case before the PUC and William Freddo of PG&E National Energy Group who will give us some education on operating a power plant inside the New England ISO. Now for your daily bread provided this week by Dan Douglass. Last week we had a joke about Catholics. This week it?s agnostics. ===================== An atheist was taking a walk thru the woods admiring all that the accident of evolution had created. What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals! he said to himself. As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. As he turned to look he saw a 7 foot grizzly bear charging towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him. He tried to run even faster so scared that tears were coming to his eyes. His heart was pumping frantically as he tried to run even faster but he tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up and saw the bear right on top of him raising its paw to kill him. At that instant he cried out Oh my God! And time stopped. The bear froze. The forest was silent. The river even stopped flowing. A bright light shone upon the man and a voice out of the sky said You deny my existence all these years teach others I don't exist and even credit my creation to a cosmic accident and now do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer? The atheist ever so proud looked into the light and said It would be rather hypocritical to ask to be counted as a believer after all these years but could you make the bear a believer? Very well said the voice. And the light went out the river flowed the sounds of the forest continued and the bear brought both paws together bowed his head and said Lord I thank you for this food which I am about to receive. ================== Amen. And have a great weekend. Oh and thanks to all of you who sent me happy birthday wishes. It was very much appreciated. KSB gba - att1.htm | other | casual | 0 |
RE: Refund Cases Timelines--Confidential Atty Client Work Product | The DC Team (Linda Robertson Ray Alvarez) attended and reported on today's prehearing conference in the California case. The schedule has moved back about a full month mostly due to the time required by PX and CAISO to produce mitigated market clearing prices and to re-run settlements based on those revised prices. Testimony by Enron on what it is owed is now not due until October 26. In addition to adopting this schedule the ALJ reported that the FERC likely not rule on petitions for rehearing of the July 25 order until October 15 2001. A revised schedule is attached. (To see how it has changed you can toggle Track Changes | Hightlight on Screen on and off) The PNW case is moving along on schedule changes attached are corrections rather than actual changes to the schedule. Notably in today's case Seattle and Tacoma waived all cross on TFG witnesses including Enron's. Alan Comnes | other | formal | 3 |
RE: Star Wars Event - Monday, 6/11/01 | Thanks I will attend. Vince | other | casual | 1 |
RE: ticket | Pani Urszulo Czy to jest Air France? Vince | personal & social | casual | 0 |
null | Please put on my calendar and call to confirm my attendance. thanks ----------------- | calendar & scheduling | casual | 3 |
Re: Organizational Changes | Mary -- see attached Stacy Guidroz@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT 09/22/99 09:36 PM To: Steven J Kean@EES cc: Subject: Organizational Changes The following is a message from Sanjay Bhatnagar: Organizational changes in India (South Asia) Region which includes India Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The team is lead by Sanjay Bhatnagar CEO. Wade Cline has joined the team as the Chief Operating Officer. Other management appointments include: (1) Bobby Farris will lead all development efforts in the region (2) Raj Thapar will lead the M&A efforts (3) Bangladesh will continue to be managed by David Howe who will report in to Bobby Farris (4) P. Sreekumar leads up the accounting function as Chief Accounting Officer assisted by Carol Hoes in Houston (5) Neil McGregor heads up the Dabhol Power Company as its President and reports directly into Sanjay and Wade (6) Communication is currently being lead by Sanjay (7) Ranabir Dutt leads the Finance Team | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Follow Up On California Information | Alan and I spoke about point #2 on the comparison benchmark. At this point we may be able to just say it is based on a comparison of the contracts with today's forward market and gloss over the exact forward curve we used. Of course if there is a way to come up with a similar number using publicly available data (or if we are willing to provide our numbers if pressed) then all the better. In the mean time should I hold off on using the $13.8 billion number until I hear back from you about the conversation with Steve? Also do I understand correctly from Alan that the $13.8 billion figure is NOT comparing the long term contracts California signed with recent spot market prices but rather is a comparison of the contracts to our present forward pricing curves? From you e-mail it is the latter I take it. As to point #1 on the deal last year we just need a similar back of the envelope calculation on what California could have saved had California taken us up on the offers we and others made. Any guidance on where to get that would be most helpful. | other | formal | 3 |
RE: Report for Prof. Duffie | Amitava Let's talk about it on Monday. Vince | business document | casual | 3 |
EES Associate and Analyst Mid-year 2001 PRC - SAVE THE DATE | ----------------- | other | formal | 0 |
Ross Perots EMS company | We can create significant mutual benefit by partnering with a firm which is focussed on developing IT systems for bulk power systems: We need to take our deregulation model to the next level of detail by having IT solutions which will support our view of how the market ought to work. The IT firm would benefit from our access to the policy makers (domestic and international) whose decisions will make the IT firm's systems either successful or obsolete. Call me if you would like to discuss. ----------------- | other | formal | 3 |
Enrons Global Asset Management Conference | I think you or someone in your group should cover this. The attendees are operations focussed and may be interested in issues such as siting interconnection and environmental issues. Also from a more macro perspective what kinds of demands the new industry structure may place on operators -- the importance of flexibility in asset operations (ie the premium the market will place on quick response) or the challenges of different scheduling regimes between the gas and power markets. ----------------- | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Senator Dunn Hearing | Can you circulate the link to Cal TV again? Scott Govenar <sgovenar@govadv.com> on 07/16/2001 01:58:41 PM Please respond to <sgovenar@govadv.com> To: Ban Sharma <ban.sharma@enron.com> David Leboe <David.Leboe@ENRON.com> Eric Letke <eletke@enron.com> Jennifer Thome <Jennifer.Thome@enron.com> Ken Smith <ken@kdscommunications.com> Bev Hansen <bhansen@lhom.com> Hedy Govenar <hgovenar@govadv.com> Miyung Buster <Miyung.Buster@enron.com> Janel Guerrero <Janel.Guerrero@enron.com> Robert Frank <rfrank@enron.com> Mike Day <MDay@GMSSR.com> Leslie Lawner <Leslie.Lawner@enron.com> Harry. Kingerski@enron. com <Harry.Kingerski@enron.com> Karen Denne <kdenne@enron.com> Steven Kean <Steven.J.Kean@enron.com> Alan Comnes <acomnes@enron.com> Susan J Mara <smara@enron.com> Paul Kaufman <paul.kaufman@enron.com> Jeff Dasovich <jdasovic@enron.com> Jim Steffes <james.d.steffes@enron.com> Rick Shapiro <rshapiro@enron.com> cc: Subject: Senator Dunn Hearing THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE PRICE MANIPULATION OF THE WHOLESALE ENERGY MARKET WILL MEET ON WEDNESDAY JULY 18 AT 9:30 A.M. IN ROOM 3191 TO REVIEW COMPLIANCE WITH SUBPOENAS FOR DUKE DYNEGY RELIANT AES NRG AND WILLIAMS. | other | formal | 5 |
Angle Master Invention | null | other | neutral | 0 |
<<Concur Expense Document>> - JB 004 | ----------------- | finance | formal | 3 |
Speak to DFSC - Sharon Murphy, per Gary von Fischer, in 49C1 | Moved to 11:00 per Larry Trybus Please address issues in 889 OASIS in addition to deregulation material You will have an hour to speak | other | formal | 3 |
CONFIDENTIAL (The Manifesto) | To: Ad Hoc Committee Dear Colleague Several of you have pointed out that the Manifesto is a bit long. We will endeavor to shorten it somewhat which will be possible as there is some duplication however more importantly we plan to add an executive summary which will be the editorial link version that most will read. I hope to get that out by 5:00 PM today. Thanks David David J. Teece Director Institute of Management Innovation and Organization F402 Haas School of Business #1930 University of California Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720-1930 Phone: (510) 642-1075 Fax: (510) 642-2826 | other | formal | 3 |
Enron Mentions | California Adopts Variable Pricing Raising Ire of Generators Traders The Wall Street Journal 10/30/00 Enron Offers Cash To Help Azurix Take Itself Private The Wall Street Journal 10/30/00 Companies: U.S. Companies The Wall Street Journal Europe 10/30/00 Wessex switch likely The Times of London 10/28/00 Enron water unit could go private under loan plan Houston Chronicle 10/28/00 Quietly Bush's team talks about transition Plenty of folks in Austin would love to follow Bush to D.C. Austin American-Statesman 10/28/00 Dynegy: Calif Price Caps Will Compromise Elec Reliability Dow Jones Energy Service 10/28/00 SEC Filing Shows 3rd Parties Contacted Enron About Azurix Dow Jones News Service 10/27/00 Enron offers to buy out Azurix Financial Times October 27 2000 California Adopts Variable Pricing Raising Ire of Generators Traders By Rebecca Smith Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal 10/30/2000 The Wall Street Journal A4 (Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) LOS ANGELES -- In the latest attempt to fix California's troubled deregulated energy market officials adopted a unique variable-pricing plan that already is being criticized by power generators and traders as unworkable and praised by utilities and consumers as much needed protection against gouging. Under the plan adopted late last week by the governing board of the California Independent System Operator or ISO a quasipublic agency responsible for maintaining electricity reliability in the state the cap on wholesale power will be reset hourly from about $65 per megawatt hour at low-demand times to no more than $250 an hour at periods of high demand. It was the third time this year that officials effectively lowered the price cap on wholesale electricity in a bid to contain -- so far unsuccessfully -- soaring total power costs. The move underscores the chaotic atmosphere prevailing in California's power market after a two-year-old experiment in deregulation has come undone. In other deregulated markets such as New York and New England prices are capped at $1000 per megawatt hour which are intended to be low enough to prevent market abuse but high enough to give generators incentive to build new plants. California's system was supposed to work the same way. But because utilities in California divested themselves of the bulk of their plants but weren't allowed to lock in fixed-price supply contracts unlike in the other markets merchant generators have had much greater sway over prices here on the spot market where most power trades. During the first nine months of the year the average price of wholesale electricity was $90 per megawatt hour in California triple the price of a year earlier. Even on cool days in October the price generally has remained above $100 per megawatt hour. California utilities have lost money on those power purchases because their customers' rates are frozen at $54 to $65 per megawatt hour far lower than the average price utilities have had to pay for that power. The deficits exceeded $5 billion in the June-to-September period. California utilities buy the power used by their customers from the state-sanctioned auctions administered by the ISO and a sister organization the California Power Exchange. In New York and New England by comparison less than 20% of power is purchased from the spot markets because utilities there were able to sign the fixed-price contracts which California utilities weren't allowed to do. The price-cap decision passed last week by a vote of 13 to 10 primarily with support from utilities and board members representing consumer interests. It was pushed aggressively by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Southern California Edison the state's two big investor-owned utilities that have gotten caught in the price-spike vise this year. Some ISO members say they had no choice but to support the measure to ratchet down price caps. We're going after the windfall profits said S. David Freeman general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who voted for the measure. What we've got now is a market accustomed to ripping off the consumer. This can't be allowed to go on. But other experts said the hasty measure may make California's problems even worse. The short-term regulatory fix is always to fix prices said Pam Prairie director of the Institute of Public Utilities at Michigan State University in East Lansing. But there's a real danger you'll set prices too low and make your supply problems even worse. Other economists agreed. At best this is poorly administered cost-based regulation said Frank Wolak an economics professor at Stanford University who sits on an independent market-monitoring committee at the ISO. At worst it creates all sorts of perverse market incentives. For example it may increase the problem of megawatt laundering on hot days in which in-state generators sell power to out-of-state customers who then sell it back into the state effectively bypassing the cap. Likewise it could encourage generators to build new plants outside of California rather than where they are needed near its major cities also to avoid the cap. In the end it could increase stresses to the state's already overburdened transmission system. In fact the decision already has brought to a halt the state's forward electricity market which allows wholesale customers to sign contracts for power they will use in the future. The market had been trading as much as 1000 contracts a week. On Friday there was practically no activity. This decision shows the height of lunacy said Rick Shapiro a managing director at Enron Corp. the giant Houston-based energy trader. Mr. Shapiro said Enron and other generators will file appeals at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking that the new pricing formula be rescinded. It is possible the FERC may throw out the pricing formula anyway. It is expected to issue a major order on Nov. 1 directing changes in California's market structure. That order will include its determination of the effectiveness of price caps. It also is expected to judge the merits of the governance structure at the ISO which has lately been marked by infighting. Recently consumer groups have charged that the ISO board has put the business interests of its members ahead of members' fiduciary duty to California residents. The most recent price-cap measure was approved over the objections of executives at the ISO whose job it will be to implement the formula. ISO Chief Executive Terry Winter said the measure is flawed because it doesn't take into account the amount of power available to the California market. Mr. Winter fears the caps will place the state at a disadvantage relative to neighboring states with no price caps. About 11 states are electrically interconnected in the West meaning power can be moved between them and chase the highest prices. We keep getting accused of making our market too complicated Mr. Winter said. Then along comes this proposal with caps that would adjust repeatedly throughout the day depending on demand. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Enron Offers Cash To Help Azurix Take Itself Private By Rebecca Smith Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal 10/30/2000 The Wall Street Journal A12 (Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) Enron Corp. offered to lend Azurix Corp. an Enron spinoff $275 million so that it could take itself private. Enron which has been frustrated with the global water company's performance suggested Friday that public shareholders receive a cash offer of $7 a share for their Azurix stock. While nearly double the stock's value prior to the offer the suggested price nevertheless was far below the $19 at which Azurix made its debut in 1999. An Azurix spokeswoman said the board on which Enron has seats had not yet decided how to treat the Enron offer. An Enron spokesman said that taking the company private would give us more opportunity to directly affect our investment. In 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday Azurix soared $3 to $6.56 in heavy trading. Azurix had hoped to create a splash by doing to the water business what Enron had done to the energy business -- increase competition and provide trading skills capable of creating new financial products out of old commodities. But Azurix stumbled nearly from the outset. Deregulation of the water business and government privatizations of water systems on which it was counting were slow to come crimping growth opportunities and profit. And Enron accustomed to higher faster returns grew impatient with the capital-intensive water business. The company's first chief executive Rebecca Mark a onetime head of Enron's international division resigned in the summer with the agreement of Enron executives who said it was time for new leadership. The incoming chief executive John Garrison said he would look for buyers for some of the company's businesses he was unavailable to comment Friday. Ms. Mark was believed to be considering making an offer for some of those businesses herself. She declined a request for an interview. In its letter to Azurix officers Enron said the water company received four offers from prospective suitors after Ms. Mark's departure the best of which came from an unidentified bidder who offered $7 a share and went through a lengthy due-diligence process before backing down apparently spooked by Azurix's cash flow capital structure tax considerations and some securities litigation. In its proposal letter made public Friday Enron said it concluded that there is no other buyer willing to pay the $7 and so proceeded with its own offer. But Enron said it won't try to limit Azurix's ability to negotiate a better deal with others should they come forward. Finally Enron noted that Azurix had considered various partial or full-liquidation alternatives but said they didn't seem likely to produce more than $7 a share. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Companies: U.S. Companies 10/30/2000 The Wall Street Journal Europe 5 (Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) Enron Offers Loan to Azurix Enron Corp. offered to lend Azurix Corp. an Enron spinoff $275 million (327.6 million euros) so that it could take itself private. Enron which has been frustrated with the global water company's performance suggested Friday that public shareholders receive a cash offer of $7 a share for their Azurix stock. While nearly double the stock's value prior to the offer the suggested price nevertheless was far below the $19 at which Azurix made its debut in 1999. (Staff) Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Business Wessex switch likely Adam Jones in New York 10/28/2000 The Times of London News International 2W 64 (Copyright Times Newspapers Ltd 2000) Wessex Water's American parent company is likely to be taken private after a disastrous 14-month spell as a quoted company. Wessex which provides water services to the South of England was bought by Azurix in 1998 for Pounds 1.6 billion. Azurix wanted to use Wessex's expertise in privatised water supply to build a global business. However since listing at $19 a share in June last year Azurix stock has gone into freefall closing at less than $4 earlier this week. Azurix slumped because it drastically misjudged the number of privatisation opportunities. It emerged last night that Enron the Texan energy and trading company that is Azurix's biggest shareholder has taken the unusual step of offering to lend Azurix $275 million (Pounds 190 million) to buy its publicly held shares thereby taking it private. The Enron proposal would value Azurix at about $800 million or $7 per share - 63 per cent less than the IPO price. Enron would control Azurix and Wessex Water if it went private. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. BUSINESS Enron water unit could go private under loan plan NELSON ANTOSH Staff 10/28/2000 Houston Chronicle 3 STAR 1 (Copyright 2000) Enron offered Friday to lend Azurix its struggling water affiliate about $275 million so Azurix can go private by purchasing 38.6 million shares that are publicly traded. The deal would have Azurix buying back its stock at $7 per share about double what the shares were trading for Thursday. That's a big comedown for Azurix shares which sold for $19 each when the Houston company went public in June 1999. The maneuver technically can be called a take-under said analyst Carol Coale of Prudential Securities in Houston. She also described it as Enron's least painful solution for what to do with the venture that never lived up its ambitious plans. Nothing about Azurix has been positive for Enron in my view said Coale. This is a solution to a problem. Azurix spokeswoman Diane Bazelides said its board is studying Enron's proposal. She added that it was too early to comment on the offer because the proposal's structure had not been outlined. Enron imposed no deadline for a decision by Azurix but reserved the right to withdraw the offer if Azurix's position with prospective customers and employees deteriorated. One of Enron's conditions is that Azurix not sell any major assets before the buyout. The deal would not change Enron's large stake in Azurix said Palmer. It owns a third while the other third is owned by the Atlantic Water Trust in which Enron owns a 50 percent voting interest. The proposal's advantages include giving public shareholders a premium to the market price said Enron spokesman Mark Palmer. The common stock of Azurix zoomed Friday on the news gaining $3 to close at $6.56 on the New York Stock Exchange. Becoming a private company would give Azurix management greater flexibility in restructuring. Coale said it would reduce Azurix's general and administrative costs helping it to bid against lower- cost foreign competition particularly two big French companies. Azurix's high cost structure has been its primary problem she said. Azurix has been looking at cost and strategies ever since it got a new president and chief executive on Aug. 25 said Bazelides. That was the date that Rebecca Mark resigned as Azurix's high-profile chairman and chief executive. Enron and Azurix have been looking at strategic alternatives for nine months J. Mark Meets Enron's executive vice president for corporate development said in a letter filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. One alternative was selling the company he said. That didn't work out because the offers from three companies didn't exceed $4 per share. The fourth potential buyer said it would consider offering $7 per share said Meets. But that suitor backed out citing reasons like cash flow complexity of the capital structure tax considerations and pending securities litigation. We are obviously quite disappointed by this most recent turn of events Meets said in the letter. However we strongly believe that there is no other buyer willing to pay the $7 per share initially proposed (but later withdrawn) by the fourth bidder. Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Quietly Bush's team talks about transition Plenty of folks in Austin would love to follow Bush to D.C. Ken Herman American-Statesman Capitol Bureau Chief 10/28/2000 Austin American-Statesman A1 (Copyright 2000) Not long ago at a glossy wooden table in a Texas Capitol office two of Gov. George W. Bush's high-level appointees discussed one of the key issues in state government these days. It involved the relative merits of White House posts that could be available to the two appointees if Bush becomes president. Asked this week whether it's a common topic around the Capitol one of the appointees gestured to the anteroom of his office and made a motion indicating that even the midlevel folks have Washington on their minds. Near the banks of the Colorado Potomac Fever is a near-epidemic. And though it is political faux pas to be too open about doing White House transition planning before Election Day be assured it is going on at Bush headquarters where top officials are cognizant of the fine line between looking too confident now and looking too unprepared later. The candidate himself -- as well as his top aides -- steers clear of transition talk. When asked who might wind up in his Cabinet Bush looks backward instead of forward saying that his selection of Dick Cheney as his running mate should offer a glimpse of the kind of people who would wind up in his administration. The transition work such that it is is under the aegis of longtime Bush friend and aide Clay Johnson who began as head of the gubernatorial appointments office and now serves as chief of staff. Johnson said nobody has been interviewed for any Washington post but he has compiled a file of folks who are interested in serving in a Bush administration. Johnson also has been reading up on previous transitions -- ones that went well and ones that didn't. His preliminary conclusion is that the outgoing administrations are generally helpful and supportive even if they were ousted by the incoming administration. It's the incoming administrations that can make the mistakes he said. There is no shortage of think tanks that have think-tanked the topic. Back in August the Heritage Foundation based in Washington issued a transition handbook titled The Keys to a Successful Presidency. Though we really don't expect either campaign to talk about it (and would discourage them from doing so) the message here is it's time to start planning for a possible presidential transition quietly well behind the scenes but with the understanding that the preparation done during the next 70 or so days and the work done in the 70 or so days that follow (between the election and the inauguration) will very well determine the initial success or failure of the next administration Herbert Berkowitz a foundation vice president said in releasing the study. All indications are that the Bush team has been following the advice with Johnson at the helm. Johnson cautions against expectations that a Bush administration would be overloaded with Texans. It's the United States of America not the United States of Texas he said. Despite that caveat there is no shortage of Texans who are considered shoo-ins to fill some of the thousands of slots Bush could offer if he wins. Johnson confirms that he is very interested in a Washington job. Early speculation among Bush aides makes Johnson a potential leading contender for head of personnel at the White House. Karen Hughes Bush's communications director since his 1994 gubernatorial campaign is expected to become Bush's press secretary if he wins the White House. Karl Rove Bush's longtime political guru also will be on board though he could wind up with an out-of- the-White-House post perhaps at the Republican National Committee. Not as certain is the potential future for Joe Allbaugh who is part of the iron triangle of top advisers -- along with Rove and Hughes -- who have been on board with Bush since the 1994 campaign. Allbaugh serves as manager of the presidential campaign and previously served as chief of staff in the governor's office. Capitol speculation indicates Allbaugh could decide to skip a White House post possibly in favor of a lobbying job if he is not tapped as chief of staff. That post could go to Don Evans a longtime Bush friend who headed the megasuccessful fund-raising effort for the presidential campaign. However not everyone has Potomac Fever. For example Terral Smith Bush's legislative director said he will stay in Austin to lobby. In addition to the speculation about appointees the approaching election has sparked talk about when Bush might leave office if he wins. Under the U.S. Constitution he could remain governor until he has to become president on Jan. 20. Much more likely however is that Bush would leave office sooner than that perhaps as soon as two or three weeks after the Nov. 7 election if he wins. That could cause a housing problem for Bush whose main residence is the Governor's Mansion which comes as a free perk of the job. The Bushes have a home under construction at their ranch in Crawford near Waco. The ranch also has a smaller house in which the Bushes now spend weekends. Not out of the question is that Bush could work out an arrangement with Lt. Gov. Rick Perry who would become governor if Bush resigns to remain in the Governor's Mansion for several weeks after he leaves office. If the race among Texas senators to replace Perry as lieutenant governor complicates the timing of the resignation Bush could stay in the governor's office a little longer but no later than the first week of January. After all he will want to give Perry time to bask in his gubernatorial inauguration before the Legislature convenes Jan. 9. No matter when Bush resigns confidantes believe he might use his Crawford ranch for interviews with potential top-level appointees including Cabinet members. You may contact Ken Herman at kherman@statesman.com or 445-1718. Washington buzz A look at Bush allies expected to get appointments in a Bush administration: * Texas Secretary of State Elton Bomer * State Rep. Tom Craddick R-Midland * Public Safety Commission Chairman Jim Francis of Dallas * Texas Railroad Commissioner Tony Garza* Texas Supreme Court Justice Al Gonzales * Former Dallas ISD board President Sandy Kress * Kenneth Lay of Houston chief executive officer of Enron * Ralph Marquez of Texas City member of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission * Vance McMahan of Austin a policy adviser in the governor's office * Harriet Miers of Dallas Bush's personal lawyer and former appointee to the Texas Lottery Commission * Pat Oxford Houston lawyer and member of the University of Texas System Board of Regents * Pat Wood of Austin chairman of the Texas Public Utility Commission * Margaret La Montagne the governor's education adviser Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Dynegy: Calif Price Caps Will Compromise Elec Reliability 10/27/2000 Dow Jones Energy Service (Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) LOS ANGELES -(Dow Jones)- A Dynegy executive said Friday that the California Independent System Operator's plan to impose hourly price caps on the wholesale power market will compromise reliability by forcing generators to sell electricity out of state. If the ISO says it will not buy above a certain price and generators cannot operate below that price then we have no choice but to find other markets to participate in said Dynegy senior vice president of marketing and trading asset management Lynn Lednicky. That may lead to the ISO not finding the power it needs at a price it wants to pay. The ISO plans to construct hourly price caps each month based on forecast load natural gas prices and generation unit efficiency. The caps will take effect Nov. 3 or soon therafter. Dynegy Inc. (DYN) sent a letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking it to address reliability consequences of the price caps before Nov. 3. Dynegy specifically requested that FERC discuss the issue at its Nov. 1 meeting when it will release a report on California's electricity problems. Enron Corp. (ENE) and Southern Company (SO) share Dynegy's concerns about reliability and plan to petition FERC about the issue said a trader listening in to a conference call between the three companies. -By Jessica Berthold Dow Jones Newswires 323-658-3872 jessica.berthold@dowjones.com Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. SEC Filing Shows 3rd Parties Contacted Enron About Azurix By Christopher C. Williams 10/27/2000 Dow Jones News Service (Copyright (c) 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc.) Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES New York -(Dow Jones)- Shares of Azurix Corp. (AZX) jumped 84% in heavy trading Friday after parent Enron Corp. (ENE) proposed to take the company private in a $7-a-share buyout. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed that Enron made the proposal after not being satisfied with offers it had received from four third parties for its stake in Azurix. In a letter to two members of Azurix's board Enron said three potential buyers were unlikely to be willing to pay more than the then-current market price of approximately $4 a share. Enron said a fourth potential buyer indicated it would consider a $7-a-share offer but it said that proposal was recently withdrawn. The reasons given by the bidder included pro forma cash flows the complexity of the capital structure tax considerations and the currently pending securities litigation the letter said. Mark Palmer a spokesman for Houston-based Enron declined to say whether Enron was entertaining current third-party interests or was in any talks with other parties regarding its Azurix stake. In New York Stock Exchange composite trading Azurix ended Friday up $3 to $6.56 on 2.8 million shares compared with average daily volume of 239000 shares. Enron was up $1.38 or 1.8% to $78.88 on 1.6 million shares compared with its daily average turnover of 2.4 million. In the SEC filing Enron saying it's familiar with Azurix's various partial and full liquidation alternatives said its buyout proposal is conditioned upon Azurix not selling any significant assets prior to the buyout. Although we agree that such plans may result in greater value to Azurix's shareholders than the maintenance of the status quo we believe that these options almost certainly will not result on a present value in a greater return to Azurix's shareholders than $7 a share the letter said. Enron also said its buyout proposal doesn't include any breakup fees or other deal protection devices. This frees Azurix's board to pursue an acquisition that might provide greater value to shareholders. Daine Bazelides a spokeswoman for Azurix declined to say whether Azurix is now entertaining offers for the company. She did however confirm the information contained in Enron's filing. The historical information in the filing is factually correct she told Dow Jones Newswires. She said she doesn't know when Azurix board will respond to Enron's proposal. In the filing Enron didn't set a deadline but warned that Azurix's position with customers and employees may deteriorate further. We must therefore reserve the right to withdraw our proposal at any time Enron's letter said. In the letter Enron pointed out that Azurix had retained two internationally recognized investment bankers early this year to evaluate strategic alternatives which included the potential sale of the company to unrelated third parties. Enron said it strongly believes there isn't another buyer willing to pay $7 a share for Enron's indirect interest in Azurix. We believe it is in Azurix's best interest as well as the best interest of its shareholders and employees if Azurix were no longer a publicly traded company Enron said. -By Christopher C. Williams Dow Jones Newswires 201-938-5219 Copyright 2000 Dow Jones & Company Inc. All Rights Reserved. Enron offers to buy out Azurix Financial Times By Hillary Durgin in Houston Published: October 27 2000 23:31GMT | Last Updated: October 27 2000 23:36GMT Enron the Houston-based energy and trading group said on Friday it had offered up to $275m in funding to take Azurix private at a buy-out price of $7 per share. The specific structure of Enron's proposal has yet to be determined Enron said. Azurix said its board would now consider the proposal. The timing of any decision was unclear. Enron owns directly and indirectly about 66 per cent of Azurix the troubled Houston water company whose main asset is UK-based Wessex Water. The buyout offer is the latest development in a history of problems at Azurix which was spun off from Enron and taken public at an offering price of $19 per share. But a combination of poor market timing competitive industry conditions and empty promises by the company on Wall Street took their toll on the company whose shares have since plummeted and have been trading most recently around the $3-per-share range. In August Rebecca Mark Azurix chief executive officer resigned both from Azurix and from the board at Enron. Enron's offer came after four unnamed parties approached Enron about buying its stake in Azurix. While three of the four were unwilling to pay more than the then market price of about $4 per share a fourth party who was considering offering $7 per share (before accounting for any dilution for stock options) later declined to pursue the transaction Enron said in Friday's letter to Azurix outlining the buyout proposal. We strongly believe that our proposal is fair to Azurix's public stockholders the letter stated. Our proposed transaction would permit Azurix's stockholders to receive on a timely basis a cash payment for their shares that is significantly above the price at which those shares have traded in several months. Analysts that follow Azurix and had valued the shares at between $6 and $8 per shares said the offer was fair. Analysts that follow Enron said that Azurix's business strategy had proved to be a failure and was characteristic of the hard asset approach that Enron has gradually distanced itself from. Enron's shares closed at $78.88 up $1.38 on Friday. Azurix's shares rose $3 to close at $6.56. | other | neutral | 3 |
Re: REVISION - New HR Rep for Public Affairs and Administration | Please do send it out. Thanks for the kind words. I know you know how I feel about your work and I have shared that view widely. I have enjoyed working with you I always valued your insights your responsiveness and your work ehtic. I wish you all the best in your new role. Gwendolyn Petteway@ENRON 07/24/2000 02:47 PM To: Steven J Kean/HOU/EES@EES cc: Subject: REVISION - New HR Rep for Public Affairs and Administration Arquella's last day is Wed. 7/26. ----------------- | human resources | formal | 3 |
Re: FW: Request for PR2 Access | OK From: Jo Ann Hill/ENRON@enronXgate on 07/18/2001 04:31 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Kathryn Schultea/ENRON@enronXgate Mary Joyce/ENRON@enronXgate Subject: FW: Request for PR2 Access Steve -- For your approval. As some additional information regarding the request Kathy Diane Taylor and I met with Deana Taylor this afternoon to understand what each person's role was and the specific access needed. For the interim we are recommending that the HR View Basic Data & Org ENTP and View Payroll and Time ENTP role be granted to each of the individuals listed below. Until January 1 this function was performed in the Payroll Department and at that time was transitioned to Karen and Deana's group. The people listed below actually transferred from the Payroll Department. For the long term we are going to look at creating a specific role for this group that would let them access only those data elements needed. I've spoken with Mary Joyce by phone and she has approved so I am requesting your approval as well. These people have basically been prevented from being able to reconcile any of the net pay accounts etc. for the past week. Please let me know if you will approve or if you need any additional information. Thanks. Jo Ann | human resources | formal | 3 |
IEP in the News, and other headlines | San Jose Mercury News April 19 2001 Thursday SJ-POWER 593 words ????Testimony Indicates California Electricity Market Was Troubled in 1998 By ????Brandon Bailey (Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 19 2001 Thursday BC cycle ???? 9:55 AM Eastern Time State and Regional 930 words Developments in ????California's energy crisis By The Associated Press (Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 19 2001 Thursday BC cycle ???? 9:32 AM Eastern Time State and Regional 820 words Legislators probe ????possible power natural gas collusion By DON THOMPSON Associated Press ????Writer SACRAMENTO (Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 18 2001 Wednesday BC ????cycle State and Regional 833 words Legislators probe possible power ????natural gas collusion By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer SACRAMENTO ???(Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 18 2001 Wednesday BC ????cycle State and Regional 841 words Developments in California's energy ????crisis By The Associated Press (Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) Power bloc blasts seizure idea Producers say talk of bold action fuels crisis ???????By Steve Geissinger SACRAMENTO BUREAU ?-- Oakland Tribune (Quotes Smutny on behalf of IEP) Copley News Service April 19 2001 Thursday State and regional 780 ????words Windfall-profits tax gets Davis' backing Bill Ainsworth SACRAMENTO Los Angeles Times April 19 2001 Thursday Home Edition Page 3 772 ????words CAPITOL JOURNAL ?CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST ??Price Caps Don't Fit in ????Cheney's Head for Figures GEORGE SKELTON SACRAMENTO Los Angeles Times April 19 2001 Thursday Home Edition Page 3 1373 ????words CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST ??DAVIS BACKS SILICON VALLEY POWER PROJECT ????ENERGY: GOVERNOR URGES QUICK APPROVAL OF SAN JOSE PLANT DESPITE OPPOSITION ????BY CITY AND A POWERFUL FIRM. JENIFER WARREN and TERENCE MONMANEY TIMES ????STAFF WRITERS SACRAMENTO The Orange County Register April 19 2001 Thursday STATE AND REGIONAL ????NEWS K7970 275 words Ex-energy chief leery of state buying power lines ????By Kate Berry The San Francisco Chronicle APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION ????NEWS Pg. A18 585 words Alameda public utility rents four backup ????generators ???Extra electricity will be used during summer rolling ????blackouts Matthew Yi Alameda The San Francisco Chronicle APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION ????NEWS Pg. A3 845 words Davis' gouging claims disputed ???Officials say ????no link between PG&E bankruptcy high prices David Lazarus The San Francisco Chronicle APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION ????NEWS Pg. A3 888 words Davis backs San Jose power plant ???He also ????acknowledges bailout for Edison will be uphill fight Lynda Gledhill ????Sacramento The Vancouver Sun April 19 2001 Thursday 731 words B.C. Hydro's credit ????to California firms exceeded 1999 guidelines David Baines The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 18 2001 Wednesday BC ????cycle Business News 348 words Williams again target of overcharging ????allegations from federal regulators TULSA Okla. The Associated Press State & Local Wire April 18 2001 Wednesday BC ????cycle State and Regional 332 words Governor congressman to fight ????proposals for national power deregulation policy By MARGERY BECK ????Associated Press Writer LINCOLN Neb. San Jose Mercury News April 18 2001 Wednesday SJ-POWER-PLANT 1038 ????words California Governor May Back Energy Firm's Proposed Power Plant Scripps Howard News Service April 18 2001 Wednesday DOMESTIC NEWS 588 ????words Davis says Edison agreement may need altering EMILY BAZAR and KEVIN ????YAMAMURA SACRAMENTO Calif. San Jose Mercury News April 19 2001 Thursday KR-ACC-NO: SJ-POWER LENGTH: 593 words HEADLINE: Testimony Indicates California Electricity Market Was Troubled in 1998 BYLINE: By Brandon Bailey BODY: ??SACRAMENTO Calif.--California's electricity market was showing signs of trouble as far back as 1998 the year that it was officially opened to competition members of a special legislative investigating committee were told Wednesday. ??Abnormal price spikes -- far higher than what should have occurred in a competitive market -- were showing up in August 1998 the committee was told by Frank Wolak a Stanford economist and top advisor to the California Independent System Operator which runs the state's transmission grid. ??Appearing on the first day of hearings called by a state Senate select committee to investigate alleged wholesale energy price manipulation Wolak testified that the ISO's economic advisors repeatedly found signs that power suppliers were able to influence prices over the last three years -- even before wholesale prices soared skyhigh last summer. ??By controlling even a relatively small portion of power supply just enough to make a difference in whether the state could meet consumers' needs Wolak said generators have been able to charge prices far higher than their costs. ??All told the ISO has estimated power suppliers collected more than $ 6 billion in unjustified profits last year. ??In his opinion Wolak added that violates the terms by which federal regulators allowed the suppliers to enter the state's newly deregulated market when it opened in 1998. ??The ISO is now filing petitions with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking that agency to revoke the generators' right to charge unregulated prices. ??But Wolak repeatedly told the committee that he had no evidence that the suppliers acted in collusion or that they had violated any federal anti-trust laws. ??When state Senator Joe Dunn D-Garden Grove pressed him on the point Wolak insisted I can't say yes I can't say no. There's a lot of things that certainly look puzzling. It's hard without further information and analysis to say definitively but there's lots of things to seem to be worth looking into. ??Dunn a former consumer attorney is leading the Legislature's efforts to answer a question that a host of other state and federal officials have also posed: have California's electricity prices been the result of any illegal or unethical acts? ??Power suppliers and their representatives have repeatedly said the answer is no. They say their prices are the result of short supplies and natural market swings. ??Eleven investigations into California's electricity market have been conducted or are currently under way said a statement issued Wednesday by Jan Smutny-Jones executive director of the Independent Energy Producers Association. Not one has found or proven any wrongdoing by generators. ??Dunn however said Wednesday's testimony was only the start of what he promised would be a vigorous investigation. He said the committee has already asked several power companies for records and other information and he hinted that subpoenas may be issued in the coming weeks. ??We will try to figure out how to stop these high prices if they are unjustified Dunn said at the beginning of the hearing. ??We're not going to be looking for ways to finance these payments he added. The state is now paying $ 70 million a day to buy power for California consumers after major utilities wracked up billions in debts while buying power on the open market in recent months. ??----- ??To see more of the San Jose Mercury News or to subscribe to the newspaper go to http://www.sjmercury.com JOURNAL-CODE: SJ LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 5 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ??????????????????????April 19 2001 Thursday BC cycle AM Eastern Time SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 930 words HEADLINE: Developments in California's energy crisis BYLINE: By The Associated Press BODY: ??Developments in California's energy crisis: ??THURSDAY: ??- The state remains free of power alerts as reserves stay above 7 percent. ??- Gov. Gray Davis meets with 25 members of the California congressional delegation at the Los Angeles International Airport to discuss the state's power crisis. ??- An Assembly committee continues hearings on the natural gas supply and possible price manipulation. ??-The Public Utilities Commission meets in San Francisco to decide whether to investigate if a key bloc of independent generators are purposely keeping their plants offline. ??WEDNESDAY: ??- Unchecked free-market forces drove up the price of natural gas to Southern California Edison by about $750 million over the last year an industry consultant tells the Assembly Electricity Oversight Subcommittee. ??Meanwhile the Senate's Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market begins investigating whether electric generators artificially inflated power prices. ??An industry spokesman predicts the investigations will uncover nothing illegal. ??- The state offers financial backing to Houston-based Dynegy which worried it would not be paid for power generated at its plants in California. Dynegy agrees to sell 300 megawatts of power from 17 small turbine generators in Carlsbad after receiving an offer from the California Department of Water Resources. ??- Gov. Gray Davis urges state regulators to approve the construction of a controversial 600-megawatt power plant in south San Jose to provide electricity to roughly 450000 homes in the Silicon Valley. ??- The Democratic governor lobbies Senate Democrats to support his plan to pay $2.7 billion for the transmission lines owned by Southern California Edison. ??State spending on electricity has jumped by more than 50 percent since Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. declared bankruptcy April 6 thanks in part of surcharges tacked on by power generators worried they won't be repaid Davis said. ??- The Senate Appropriations Committee sends the full Senate a bill creating a public power authority that would loan out up to $5 billion to build or buy power plants that would be required to sell electricity to consumers at low rates. ??- An Assembly committee advances a bill ending the exemption under which utility lobbyists do not have to follow the same reporting requirements as do other lobbyists. The bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. ??- A Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. shareholder sues the company claiming it misled shareholders by forecasting annual profits for two quarters last year when the suit says the company knew it was incurring losses. ??-Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch issues a statement late Wednesday saying inaction by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission forced Southern Caifornia Edison Co. to take a large write-off of debt. The company should not have to shoulder these liabilities and neither should its customers Lynch says. ??- Edison International's stock closes at $11.40 down 48 cents while stock in PG&E's parent closes up 14 cents at $9.04. ??- The state remains free of power alerts as reserves stay above 7 percent. ??WHAT'S NEXT: ??- The Assembly's Energy Oversight Subcommittee plans to resume hearings Thursday in its inquiry into California's highest-in-the-nation natural gas prices with testimony from gas companies. ??- Davis' representatives continue negotiating with Sempra the parent company of San Diego Gas and Electric Co. to buy the utility's transmission lines. Davis says he expects to have an agreement within two weeks. ??- The state Public Utilities Commission will decide Thursday whether to investigate why a key block of power generators is staying off-line despite regulators' order last month that they start getting paid by the state's utilities. Independent Energy Producers Executive Director Jan Smutny-Jones says the generators can't afford to operate because they are still owed more than a billion dollars and because the PUC's rates don't cover their operating costs. ??PUC President Loretta Lynch also wants the commission to decide Thursday to investigate whether PG&E's April 6 bankruptcy protection filing is enough of a threat to the PUC's regulatory authority to prompt more PUC involvement in the bankruptcy proceedings. ??THE PROBLEM: ??High demand high wholesale energy costs transmission glitches and a tight supply worsened by scarce hydroelectric power in the Northwest and maintenance at aging California power plants are all factors in California's electricity crisis. ??Edison and PG&E say they've lost nearly $14 billion since June to high wholesale prices that the state's electricity deregulation law bars them from passing on to consumers. PG&E saying it hasn't received the help it needs from regulators or state lawmakers filed for federal bankruptcy protection April 6. ??Electricity and natural gas suppliers scared off by the two companies' poor credit ratings are refusing to sell to them leading the state in January to start buying power for the utilities' nearly 9 million residential and business customers. The state is also buying power for a third investor-owned utility San Diego Gas & Electric which is in better financial shape than much larger Edison and PG&E but also struggling with high wholesale power costs. ??The Public Utilities Commission has raised rates up to 46 percent to help finance the state's multibillion-dollar power-buying. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 5 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ??????????????????????April 19 2001 Thursday BC cycle AM Eastern Time SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 820 words HEADLINE: Legislators probe possible power natural gas collusion BYLINE: By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer DATELINE: SACRAMENTO BODY: ??Southern California Edison was charged about $750 million more this year for natural gas because of unchecked free-market forces an industry consultant testified. ??Paul Carpenter told the Assembly Electricity Oversight Subcommittee on Wednesday the price spikes came after the El Paso Natural Gas Co. contracted first with Dynegy and later with its own marketing affiliate El Paso Merchant Energy to control the pipeline capacity. ??Officials with El Paso and other natural gas suppliers are expected to testify Thursday that they did not illegally manipulate the market. ??The California Public Utilities Commission estimated a year ago that overcharges by the companies that control natural gas flow drove up prices by $ 100 million a year to California gas and electricity customers. ??But PUC attorney Harvey Morris said that was before last summer's price spikes which he blamed on natural gas suppliers using a monopoly to game the system. ??It's way worse than we could possibly have imagined Morris said after testifying before the subcommittee. It's obviously way higher than $100 million. ??Natural gas rates at the California border generally tracked national prices until November when they spiked as high as 11 times higher than the price of natural gas elsewhere in the nation Carpenter said. ??I have never seen gas prices like this anywhere in the world said Carpenter who has been studying the energy market for 20 years for Cambridge Mass.-based consultant The Brattle Group. The Brattle Group was hired by Edison to study the natural gas market. ??The committee is one of two legislative committees exploring whether illegal market manipulation in the electricity and natural gas markets has driven up California's energy costs. ??This is a market that is plagued by the exercise of market power Frank Wolak chairman of the California Independent System Operator's Market Surveillance Committee told the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. The ISO runs the state's power grid. ??However there is no law against me saying 'I'm not going to sell to you' Wolak said. Market manipulation only becomes illegal when there is collusion Wolak said and such evidence is hard to find. ??Electricity generators and natural gas suppliers say a severe supply and demand imbalance - not market manipulation - has led to higher prices. ??Everybody's busy doing investigations. They're not interested in solving the problem said Independent Energy Producers Executive Director Jan Smutny-Jones. ??Investigations are wasting everybody's time Smutny-Jones said adding that previous probes and lawsuits have uncovered no wrongdoing. He said the state's power problems came because state regulators denied utilities the chance to sign long-term energy contracts when they had the chance. ??People have been playing by the rules Smutny-Jones said. ??But the Senate committee's first witnesses are ISO officials who authored studies that claim the state paid more than $6 billion too much for power last year. ??Committee chair Joseph Dunn D-Garden Grove also has slated state Auditor Elaine Howell who last month blamed buyers and sellers for skyrocketing electricity costs. Dunn also has scheduled future testimony from state federal academic and private investigators studying the power market. ??He invited five major generators to attend the committee's second hearing next week. All five - Reliant Dynegy Williams Energy Duke Energy and Mirant - say they are eager to cooperate and clear their names Dunn said. ??Dunn asked the five for a total of 86 specific documents. If the companies feel they cannot provide documents because of legal or confidentiality concerns Dunn said he will subpoena them. ??Smutny-Jones said investigators appear to be growing desperate to blame the state's natural gas and electricity price hikes on illegal market manipulation instead of natural market forces. ??He cited Attorney General Bill Lockyer's announcement last week that any informant who helped prove wrongdoing would be entitled to a percentage of the state's recovery he estimated could range from $50 million to hundreds of millions of dollars. ??If the state's offering a $50 million reward they haven't found anything Smutny-Jones said. I don't think you're going to find the fact that anybody did anything criminal here. ??Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza D-Long Beach said she believes otherwise after Wednesday's testimony: I think it is very clear there was some price manipulation going on. ??But Assemblyman John Campbell R-Irvine isn't sure there was anything illegal. ??There clearly are market forces at work that's evident Campbell said. Whether you make the jump to market manipulation ... I haven't seen conclusive evidence that leads me to make that jump. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 5 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ?????????????????????April 18 2001 Wednesday BC cycle SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 833 words HEADLINE: Legislators probe possible power natural gas collusion BYLINE: By DON THOMPSON Associated Press Writer DATELINE: SACRAMENTO BODY: ??Unchecked free-market forces drove up the price of natural gas to Southern California Edison by about $750 million over the last year an industry consultant testified Wednesday. ??Paul Carpenter told the Assembly Electricity Oversight Subcommittee the price spikes came after the El Paso Natural Gas Co. contracted first with Dynegy and later with its own marketing affiliate El Paso Merchant Energy to control the pipeline capacity. ??The California Public Utilities Commission estimated a year ago that overcharges by the companies that control natural gas flow drove up prices by $ 100 million a year to California gas and electricity customers. ??But PUC attorney Harvey Morris said that was before last summer's price spikes which he blamed on natural gas suppliers using a monopoly to game the system. ??It's way worse than we could possibly have imagined Morris said after testifying before the subcommittee. It's obviously way higher than $100 million. ??Natural gas rates at the California border generally tracked national prices until November when they spiked as high as 11 times higher than the price of natural gas elsewhere in the nation Carpenter said. ??I have never seen gas prices like this anywhere in the world said Carpenter who has been studying the energy market for 20 years for Cambridge Mass.-based consultant The Brattle Group. The Brattle Group was hired by Edison to study the natural gas market. ??Officials with El Paso and other natural gas suppliers have denied illegally manipulating the market. They are scheduled to testify Thursday. El Paso officials did not return telephone calls for comment Wednesday. ??The committee is one of two legislative committees exploring whether illegal market manipulation in the electricity and natural gas markets has driven up California's energy costs. ??This is a market that is plagued by the exercise of market power Frank Wolak chairman of the California Independent System Operator's Market Surveillance Committee told the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. The ISO runs the state's power grid. ??However there is no law against me saying 'I'm not going to sell to you' Wolak said. Market manipulation only becomes illegal when there is collusion Wolak said and such evidence is hard to find. ??Electricity generators and natural gas suppliers say a severe supply and demand imbalance - not market manipulation - has led to higher prices. ??Everybody's busy doing investigations. They're not interested in solving the problem said Independent Energy Producers Executive Director Jan Smutny-Jones. ??Investigations are wasting everybody's time Smutny-Jones said adding that previous probes and lawsuits have uncovered no wrongdoing. He said the state's power problems came because state regulators denied utilities the chance to sign long-term energy contracts when they had the chance. ??People have been playing by the rules Smutny-Jones said. ??But the Senate committee's first witnesses are ISO officials who authored studies that claim the state paid more than $6 billion too much for power last year. ??Committee chair Joseph Dunn D-Garden Grove also has slated state Auditor Elaine Howell who last month blamed buyers and sellers for skyrocketing electricity costs. Dunn also has scheduled future testimony from state federal academic and private investigators studying the power market. ??He invited five major generators to attend the committee's second hearing next week. All five - Reliant Dynegy Williams Energy Duke Energy and Mirant - say they are eager to cooperate and clear their names Dunn said. ??Dunn asked the five for a total of 86 specific documents. If the companies feel they cannot provide documents because of legal or confidentiality concerns Dunn said he will subpoena them. ??Smutny-Jones said investigators appear to be growing desperate to blame the state's natural gas and electricity price hikes on illegal market manipulation instead of natural market forces. ??He cited Attorney General Bill Lockyer's announcement last week that any informant who helped prove wrongdoing would be entitled to a percentage of the state's recovery he estimated could range from $50 million to hundreds of millions of dollars. ??If the state's offering a $50 million reward they haven't found anything Smutny-Jones said. I don't think you're going to find the fact that anybody did anything criminal here. ??Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza D-Long Beach said she believes otherwise after Wednesday's testimony: I think it is very clear there was some price manipulation going on. ??But Assemblyman John Campbell R-Irvine isn't sure there was anything illegal. ??There clearly are market forces at work that's evident Campbell said. Whether you make the jump to market manipulation ... I haven't seen conclusive evidence that leads me to make that jump. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 5 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ?????????????????????April 18 2001 Wednesday BC cycle SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 841 words HEADLINE: Developments in California's energy crisis BYLINE: By The Associated Press BODY: ??Developments in California's energy crisis: ??WEDNESDAY: ??- Unchecked free-market forces drove up the price of natural gas to Southern California Edison by about $750 million over the last year an industry consultant tells the Assembly Electricity Oversight Subcommittee. ??Meanwhile the Senate's Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market begins investigating whether electric generators artificially inflated power prices. ??An industry spokesman predicts the investigations will uncover nothing illegal. ??- The state offers financial backing to Houston-based Dynegy which worried it would not be paid for power generated at its plants in California. Dynegy agrees to sell 300 megawatts of power from 17 small turbine generators in Carlsbad after receiving an offer from the California Department of Water Resources. ??- Gov. Gray Davis urges state regulators to approve the construction of a controversial 600-megawatt power plant in south San Jose to provide electricity to roughly 450000 homes in the Silicon Valley. ??- The Democratic governor lobbies Senate Democrats to support his plan to pay $2.7 billion for the transmission lines owned by Southern California Edison. ??State spending on electricity has jumped by more than 50 percent since Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. declared bankruptcy April 6 thanks in part of surcharges tacked on by power generators worried they won't be repaid Davis said. ??- The Senate Appropriations Committee sends the full Senate a bill creating a public power authority that would loan out up to $5 billion to build or buy power plants that would be required to sell electricity to consumers at low rates. ??- An Assembly committee advances a bill ending the exemption under which utility lobbyists do not have to follow the same reporting requirements as do other lobbyists. The bill now goes to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. ??- A Pacific Gas and Electric Corp. shareholder sues the company claiming it misled shareholders by forecasting annual profits for two quarters last year when the suit says the company knew it was incurring losses. ??-Public Utilities Commission President Loretta Lynch issues a statement late Wednesday saying inaction by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission forced Southern Caifornia Edison Co. to take a large write-off of debt. The company should not have to shoulder these liabilities and neither should its customers Lynch says. ??- Edison International's stock closes at $11.40 down 48 cents while stock in PG&E's parent closes up 14 cents at $9.04. ??- The state remains free of power alerts as reserves stay above 7 percent. ??WHAT'S NEXT: ??- The Assembly's Energy Oversight Subcommittee plans to resume hearings Thursday in its inquiry into California's highest-in-the-nation natural gas prices with testimony from gas companies. ??- Davis' representatives continue negotiating with Sempra the parent company of San Diego Gas and Electric Co. to buy the utility's transmission lines. Davis says he expects to have an agreement within two weeks. ??- The state Public Utilities Commission will decide Thursday whether to investigate why a key block of power generators is staying off-line despite regulators' order last month that they start getting paid by the state's utilities. Independent Energy Producers Executive Director Jan Smutny-Jones says the generators can't afford to operate because they are still owed more than a billion dollars and because the PUC's rates don't cover their operating costs. ??PUC President Loretta Lynch also wants the commission to decide Thursday to investigate whether PG&E's April 6 bankruptcy protection filing is enough of a threat to the PUC's regulatory authority to prompt more PUC involvement in the bankruptcy proceedings. ??THE PROBLEM: ??High demand high wholesale energy costs transmission glitches and a tight supply worsened by scarce hydroelectric power in the Northwest and maintenance at aging California power plants are all factors in California's electricity crisis. ??Edison and PG&E say they've lost nearly $14 billion since June to high wholesale prices that the state's electricity deregulation law bars them from passing on to consumers. PG&E saying it hasn't received the help it needs from regulators or state lawmakers filed for federal bankruptcy protection April 6. ??Electricity and natural gas suppliers scared off by the two companies' poor credit ratings are refusing to sell to them leading the state in January to start buying power for the utilities' nearly 9 million residential and business customers. The state is also buying power for a third investor-owned utility San Diego Gas & Electric which is in better financial shape than much larger Edison and PG&E but also struggling with high wholesale power costs. ??The Public Utilities Commission has raised rates up to 46 percent to help finance the state's multibillion-dollar power-buying. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 Power bloc blasts seizure idea Producers say talk of bold action fuels crisis By Steve Geissinger SACRAMENTO BUREAU ?-- Oakland Tribune SACRAMENTO -- Outraged by a report in The Oakland Tribune that some lawmakers asked the governor to seize high-priced power contracts a key industry group Tuesday warned the Davis administration and Legislature that such action would worsen the energy crisis. We're publicly saying . . . this kind of rhetoric will have dire consequences on both the reliability and cost of power in California for years to come said Jan Smutny-Jones executive director of the Independent Energy Producers Association. It is the kind of rhetoric one would expect in Indonesia or the Philippines not the sixth largest economy on the planet he said in a teleconference. At the same time Davis administration officials confirmed that seizing contracts of allegedly profiteering brokers is the most likely last-ditch move if options continue to narrow ahead of the previously discussed concepts of seizing California power plants owned by out-of-state firms or passing a windfall profits tax. Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio pointed out the governor already seized power contracts on which California's investor-owned utilities were defaulting in early February. The state trying to buy its way out of the energy crisis with no clear end in sight lost a substantial measure of control over electricity prices and supplies to the courts with the recent bankruptcy filing by the Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Gov. Gray Davis a Democrat employed hard-sell tactics Tuesday in an effort to convince reluctant Democrats that their failure to embrace his plan to financially rescue teetering Southern California Edison could plunge that utility into bankruptcy as well. While most Republicans are flatly opposed to the plan as misguided Democrats who hold a majority in the Legislature worry it's a public bailout of an investor-owned utility and would hand the state control over only Edison's south-state piece of the strategic high-voltage transmission grid in California. Soaring wholesale power costs have financially shattered utilities forcing the state into runaway multibillion-dollar spending that helps keep the lights on but threatens the state budget. The manager of the state's power grid has accused generators and marketers of overcharging Californians more than $6 billion in recent months. Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg D-Van Nuys said Monday that members of both legislative houses were interested in seizure of California power plants' contracts with brokers who sell to customers within or outside the state. Sen. Don Perata D-Oakland an outspoken critic of the Davis administration's handling of the crisis said some lawmakers had asked the governor to use emergency or eminent domain powers to seize the overpriced contracts and were awaiting Davis' answer this week. Supporters of the move said seizure would allow the state to control where the power is sold and decrease price markups by eliminating the middleman. But myriad questions remain unanswered including regulatory and interstate commerce issues as well as any state reimbursement of the brokers. Any move to seize power contracts would be overturned by the courts said Gary Ackerman executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum. Instead of trying to do what's legally within their reach they go to extreme measures that are on their very face unlawful and unconstitutional Ackerman said. Moreover industry officials said seizure would not only chill industry investment in California's power system and lead to higher power costs but would be ironic since California has shunned lower-cost long-term contracts industry officials said. It would create a very unstable political regulatory environment Smutny-Jones said. It would have extremely adverse consequences for California in the long term. Even so the talk has worried the industry. Smutny-Jones said his clients are very very troubled by this sudden turn in rhetoric. I assume when senior members of the Legislature make pronouncements about potentially seizing contracts it's designed to get our attention and we obviously take those things seriously he said. The Independent Energy Producers group is in the process of contacting the Davis administration and lawmakers said Smutny-Jones. You'll hear more about this. Copyright 2001 Copley News Service Copley News Service April 19 2001 Thursday SECTION: State and regional LENGTH: 780 words HEADLINE: Windfall-profits tax gets Davis' backing BYLINE: Bill Ainsworth DATELINE: SACRAMENTO BODY: ??Federal regulators' failure to stop what they described as anti-competitive practices in the natural-gas industry added $750 million to Southern California Edison's cost of electricity a consultant estimated yesterday. ??The consultant Paul Carpenter of the Brattle Group spoke to an Assembly subcommittee investigating why California pays the highest natural-gas prices in the nation. Natural gas is a critical part of the electricity crisis because most of the state's generating plants run on natural gas. ??Natural-gas prices have soared throughout the nation but the bench mark price paid at California's border has been double that paid at other bench mark locations throughout the nation for months according to figures released by the Assembly Subcommittee on Energy Oversight. ??Next week Carpenter plans to testify at hearings in Washington D.C. on behalf of Southern California Edison and the California Public Utilities Commission which are asking federal regulators to intervene. ??The giant utility and the state regulatory body contend that a sweetheart deal between El Paso Natural Gas and El Paso Merchant Energy gave the sister companies enough market power to artificially raise the price of natural gas that flows into Southern California from Texas. ??El Paso owns the major pipeline bringing natural gas from fields in New Mexico and Texas to Southern California. El Paso Merchant Energy is an unregulated sister company. ??Carpenter called the prices paid in Southern California ''simply unprecedented'' in the United States. He estimated that the sister companies manipulated the market enough to add $2.60 to the price of a million British thermal units of gas. ??In addition he said El Paso Merchant Energy owns part of 20 smaller power plants ''qualifying facilities'' that get paid based on the price of natural gas in California. The higher natural-gas prices increase the company's revenues Carpenter said. ??El Paso company officials are expected to testify in front of the Assembly subcommittee today but in proceedings before the federal regulators they have denied any sweetheart deal. ??In a report they commissioned the company blamed the higher natural-gas prices in Southern California on increased demand and constraints on pipeline capacity. ??Gov. Gray Davis meanwhile gave his strongest endorsement yet to a windfall-profits tax on generators as a Senate committee chaired by Joseph Dunn D-Laguna Niguel began a series of hearings to probe possible price gouging by generators. ??''I believe the Legislature would be well within its prerogative to insist that generators receive an appropriate reduction whether it's 20 percent or any other number the Legislature hit upon'' Davis said. ??Senate Democrats Davis said will form a special committee to help work on his plan for the state purchase of the transmission system of Southern California Edison for $2.76 billion in exchange for state aid in paying off the utilities' debt. ??The governor said he told Senate Democrats a number of whom are skeptical of the plan that Edison's parent firm has agreed to back a $3 billion upgrade of the neighborhood distribution system retained by Edison and to return a $400 million tax refund to the utility. ??At the natural-gas hearing yesterday state officials said that after El Paso Merchant Energy bought a significant part of the pipeline capacity from its sister company it withheld natural gas to drive prices up. ??''Marketers have gamed the system and figured out how to hoard capacity and undermine competition'' said Harvey Morris an attorney for the California Public Utilities Commission. ??State regulators want the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which regulates natural gas to open the market to more competitors. ??But the commission has repeatedly rejected similar complaints in the past. On March 28 FERC ruled that the affiliates did not arrange a sweetheart deal. ??''The fact that El Paso Merchant controls a large volume of capacity does not in and of itself render the El Paso contracts unjust unreasonable or unduly discriminatory'' FERC ruled. ??In other cases involving natural gas federal regulators acknowledged that certain contract provisions allowed anti-competitive behavior but they approved those contracts anyway. ??Lawmakers said they were puzzled by the federal regulators' lack of action. ??''It baffles me that we've found the problem anti-competitive behavior and market gaming but there's no cure because federal regulators won't take action'' said Assemblyman Juan Vargas D-San Diego. Staff writer Ed Mendel contributed to this report. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS 2001 / Los Angeles Times Angeles Times ????????????????????April 19 2001 Thursday Home Edition SECTION: Part A Part 1 Page 3 Metro Desk LENGTH: 772 words HEADLINE: CAPITOL JOURNAL CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST Price Caps Don't Fit in Cheney's Head for Figures BYLINE: GEORGE SKELTON DATELINE: SACRAMENTO BODY: ??Want price caps on wholesale electricity to staunch the bleeding of billions from California? Not going to happen Vice President Dick Cheney insists. Don't waste your energy thinking about it. ??Frankly California is looked on by many folks as a classic example of the kinds of problems that arise when you do use price caps Cheney said in a telephone interview Wednesday. ??The vice president was referring to another type of price cap--the infamous state cap on consumer rates that has left the private utilities billions short of enough revenue to pay their gouging wholesalers. What political leaders in California and the Northwest are pleading for from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is a regional cap on wholesale prices. ??Early last year a megawatt-hour was selling wholesale in California for $ 30. By year's end it had risen to an average $ 300 according to state officials. At peak prices have soared to $ 1500. Meanwhile demand increased last year by less than 4%. In fact demand last month was 9% less than in March 2000. ??This is the sorry news for ratepayers/ taxpayers: Californians paid $ 7.4 billion for electricity in 1999. This year the tab--without price caps--is projected at $ 70 billion. Gov. Gray Davis disclosed Tuesday that his administration has been shelling out $ 73 million a day to buy electricity for the pauper utilities. ??The profits of power producers--many of them Texans and Bush backers--have risen 400%-500%-600%. ??* ??But none of this budges the Bush administration. ??Price caps Cheney declares may provide short-term political relief for the politicians. But they don't do anything to deal with the basic fundamental problem. That problem is supply he says price caps discourage investment in new power plants and encourage consumption. ??Counters Garry South Davis' political strategist: The notion by free market zanies that you have to let profits rise 500%-600% is ludicrous. Reasonable profits can be made without bankrupting the system. They're just trying to protect the profits of their friends in the energy business. ??In truth California is building power plants as fast as it can. But not enough new megawatts apparently will be online by summer to prevent blackouts--and the bleeding of billions more into the pockets of out-of-state profiteers. ??How about a temporary price cap? ??Six months? Six years? Cheney replies. Once politicians can no longer resist the temptation to go with price caps they usually are unable to ever muster the courage to end them . . . ??I don't see that as a possibility . . . Any package you can wrap it in any fancy rhetoric you can prop it up with it does not solve the problem. ??* ??The White House clearly understands it has a problem in California--a political problem. A problem with a Democratic-dominated state that voted overwhelmingly for Al Gore. And now a problem with that mythical headline--Bush to California: Drop Dead--which seems to be getting bigger each day. ??There have been several recent California: Drop Dead stories. One was in Sunday's New York Times--Bush Devoting Scanty Attention to California. Tuesday the Sacramento Bee reported that when Cheney met with Northwest members of Congress to discuss West Coast energy he barred Californians from the room. ??Cheney flatly denies it. ??But Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says she has had trouble making contact with the Bush White House. She has sent two letters to President Bush asking for a meeting on energy. The first time she got back a form letter with her name misspelled. On the second try she got a group meeting with Cheney. ??It was very disappointing she says. He spoke about letting the free market work and drilling in Alaska . That's not going to help California in the short-term. We need price caps until we're able to fix this very broken market. . . ??There seems no interest in really wanting to understand the California situation. ??I asked Cheney whether he sensed an anti-California bias across the country? No more than there's an anti-Texas bias he replied. I wouldn't get paranoid about it. ??The fact is California is one of the leading states in the nation. Often a trendsetter. . . . Well we hope not to emulate your energy policy. Hopefully we'll learn from that. ??His message to California: There's no reason not to be optimistic. The energy crunch obviously is a significant problem. . . . But it too will pass. ??While learning from California the Bush White House also might take a refresher course in the free market Hoover administration. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS 2001 / Los Angeles Times Angeles Times ????????????????????April 19 2001 Thursday Home Edition SECTION: Part A Part 1 Page 3 Metro Desk LENGTH: 1373 words HEADLINE: CALIFORNIA AND THE WEST DAVIS BACKS SILICON VALLEY POWER PROJECT ENERGY: GOVERNOR URGES QUICK APPROVAL OF SAN JOSE PLANT DESPITE OPPOSITION BY CITY AND A POWERFUL FIRM. BYLINE: JENIFER WARREN and TERENCE MONMANEY TIMES STAFF WRITERS DATELINE: SACRAMENTO BODY: ??Attempting to show that no region in California is safe from sacrifice Gov. Gray Davis on Wednesday called for quick state approval of a controversial power plant proposed for the Silicon Valley. ??The governor's action locks him in combat with the San Jose City Council which has unanimously rejected the plant and Cisco Systems the computer networking giant that wants to build its worldwide headquarters on adjacent land. ??In praising the proposed plant as a model of low-polluting efficiency Davis said all regions of California must share the pain as the state expands its power supply--a key step toward ending blackouts and reducing sky-high electricity prices. ??If approved the plant would be the 14th licensed by the California Energy Commission since Davis took office. The 13th--a 510-megawatt plant near San Diego--was approved unanimously by the commission Wednesday with little controversy. ??Rushing to expand the state's overtaxed energy supply the governor has recently cut in half the approval times for the licensing of some plants. Six are under construction according to Davis and three are scheduled to begin operation this summer. A fourth--the AES Corp. generator in Huntington Beach that is due to be restarted --could add more megawatts to the supply this summer. ??V. John White an energy consultant in Sacramento said the governor's newly active role as an advocate for power plants was a necessary step given the urgency of the supply shortage. ??It's very rare and I wouldn't want him to short-circuit the commission's review process White said. But I think he's trying to reassure folks we're doing everything we can and not just sitting around in our hot tubs. ??Davis urged the Energy Commission--a five-member panel dominated by his appointees--to stop talking about the project and grant it a license. If the commission does so it will mark only the third time the panel has usurped a local government's authority over zoning. ??We are all in this together Davis said flanked by a forest of electric transformers near the Capitol. We are one state and we all have to make the sacrifices necessary to make up for the mistakes of the last 12 years when no major power plants were built. ??The governor said the plant's developers Calpine Corp. and Bechtel Enterprises Holdings Inc. have made numerous concessions to San Jose officials including an agreement to sell power exclusively in the region. ??He added that the $ 300-million plant--expected to supply about 450000 homes--will be equipped with state-of-the-art systems that make it one of the cleanest plants to go up in the nation. ??The commission's staff has recommended licensing the project and some analysts said the governor's intervention--said to be unprecedented--should fuel momentum for approval. ??Commissioner Robert Laurie--one of two members who held evidentiary hearings on the project and is preparing a recommendation for the full commission--would not comment on the plant's prospects. But Laurie an appointee of former Gov. Pete Wilson insisted that the project would receive an impartial review. ??I know the importance of independent decision-making he said. ??San Jose officials say the Calpine project conflicts with the aesthetics of its site in a bucolic valley 15 miles south of downtown. On Wednesday Mayor Ron Gonzales urged the Energy Commission to give serious attention to the city's concerns about the plant's potential impact on residents and the environment. ??As the project has been designed and proposed to operate . . . it would present an unfair burden to our community the mayor said. ??A spokeswoman for the Calpine/Bechtel partnership disagreed and characterized the plant as key to restoring energy stability in the Silicon Valley a region heavily dependent on imported power. ??This is the only project in the pipeline that can help Silicon Valley out of its predicament in the near future said the spokeswoman Lisa Poelle. ??She expressed hope that the governor's comments which cap numerous meetings between the partnership staff and Davis aides would encourage San Jose to soften its stance on the project. ??The 600-megawatt plant is proposed for a swath of open space currently leased to a rancher and occupied by grazing cattle. A preliminary ruling by Laurie and the other commissioner scrutinizing the project is expected by June. The full commission would take a final vote about a month later and if a license were granted the plant would begin operations sometime in 2003. ??From the beginning the plant has been dogged by opposition and the Energy Commission has held more than 20 hearings--an unusually large number--on its fate. ??On Wednesday a spokesman for its heftiest foe San Jose-based Cisco said the company still has serious concerns about health and safety issues. ??Cisco has strongly opposed the plant because the company wants to build a $ 1.3-billion headquarters for 20000 employees nearby. In the past Cisco officials have threatened to relocate to another state if the power plant is built. ??Company spokesman Steve Langdon said the firm's plans to build an industrial campus were not scuttled by the announcement Monday that it is cutting 8500 workers from its payroll because of slumping sales of its Internet networking equipment. ??But he suggested that the plans were flexible enough to be scaled down for a smaller work force and that the campus may not house the company's headquarters. ??It doesn't all get built at once he said. We will build and occupy the site over time in phases as needed. ??Another leading opponent of the power plant argued Wednesday that the Energy Commission lacks authority to override San Jose officials and license the project. The Santa Teresa Citizen Action Group launched by homeowners near the site says the commission may only take such a step if a better plant site hasn't been identified. ??The group charges that the commission is aware of other available sites including one in an industrial part of the East Bay area and lists eight other reasons the plant should not be built among them the noise and emissions it would produce. ??The local Sierra Club chapter however has endorsed the plant largely on grounds that it would run cleaner than existing plants in the area. By offsetting emissions from those older plants the new project would actually reduce air pollution said Kurt Newick of the Sierra Club's Loma Prieta chapter. ??On another front Davis continued to lobby legislators for support for his plan to rescue Southern California Edison from bankruptcy through purchase of the utility's transmission grid. ??Emerging from lunch with state Senate Democrats who are openly wary of the deal Davis said he'd made progress to bridge some of the gaps. It was the governor's third meeting in two days with lawmakers of both parties. ??Some of the toughest skeptics are members of his own party in the Senate. Many fear that the deal Davis struck with Edison will hand the utility too much at the expense of ratepayers and some say bankruptcy might be a better option for the state's second-largest private utility. Pacific Gas & Electric Co. filed for bankruptcy April 6. ??To assuage concerns Davis proposed that a special Senate committee be named to meet with his energy advisors as the administration and Edison finalize details of the deal before it goes to the Legislature for approval. ??Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) who has called the Edison agreement problematic said he may appoint such a committee but continued to suggest that an Edison bankruptcy might be acceptable. ??Many of the Fortune 100 companies have gone into Chapter 11 bankruptcy and it ain't like the end of the world for anybody Burton said. ??* ??Times staff writer Carl Ingram contributed to this story. ??Powering Up California ??Power plant projects recently licensed by the California Energy Commission and when they are expected to go online: ??* ??* Two of four turbines are expected to go online in December 2001 the other two are expected to go online in March 2002. ??Source: California Energy Commission GRAPHIC: PHOTO: (2 photos) Gov. Gray Davis urges California Energy Commission to approve Metcalf Energy Center a 600-megawatt power plant planned for San Jose. Demonstrators greet Davis on his way to news conference in Sacramento. PHOTOGRAPHER: Associated Press PHOTO: (2 photos) Gov. Gray Davis urges California Energy Commission to approve Metcalf Energy Center a 600-megawatt power plant planned for San Jose. Demonstrators greet Davis on his way to news conference in Sacramento. ?PHOTOGRAPHER: ROBERT DURELL / Los Angeles Times GRAPHIC: Powering Up California Los Angeles Times LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ??????????????Copyright 2001 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service ???????????????????????Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service ??????????????????????????The Orange County Register 19 2001 Thursday SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS KR-ACC-NO: ?K7970 LENGTH: 275 words HEADLINE: Ex-energy chief leery of state buying power lines BYLINE: By Kate Berry BODY: ??ONTARIO Calif. _ Former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Wednesday that he is uncomfortable with the state's $2.76 billion purchase of the transmission lines of Southern California Edison because it would derail future plans to fully deregulate the state's electricity market. ??I'm leery of a state purchase Richardson said at an economic conference in Ontario adding that the jury is still out on a plan by Gov. Gray Davis to keep Edison out of bankruptcy. ??He called for a rescue of Pacific Gas and Electric the San Francisco utility that filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago. ??In a half-hour speech Richardson admonished the Bush administration for failing to take a more active role in the California crisis. He backs a one-year regional price cap to calm the volatile wholesale market. ??In the Clinton administration California was gold he said. With the new administration it's another ballgame. ??Richardson also pushed for a bipartisan energy bill with Democratic themes including energy-efficiency standards conservation and environmental regulations. ??We need an energy policy for this country that embraces both parties' proposals he said. ??Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has sparred with Richardson by trying to rescind new energy-efficiency standards for air conditioners that were approved in the last 30 days of the Clinton administration. ??ARCHIVE PHOTOS available from NewsCom-PressLink: ??Richardson. ??KRT CALIFORNIA is a premium service of Knight Ridder/Tribune ??(c) 2001 The Orange County Register (Santa Ana Calif.). ??Visit the Register on the World Wide Web at http://www.ocregister.com/ JOURNAL-CODE: OC LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ?????????????????Copyright 2001 The Chronicle Publishing Co. ?????????????????????????The San Francisco Chronicle ???????????????????APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS Pg. A18 LENGTH: 585 words HEADLINE: Alameda public utility rents four backup generators Extra electricity will be used during summer rolling blackouts SOURCE: Chronicle Staff Writer BYLINE: Matthew Yi DATELINE: Alameda BODY: Alameda's public utility announced yesterday that it is leasing four portable diesel electrical generators to avoid the one woe of the state's energy crisis they haven't been able to duck so far -- rolling blackouts. ???The utility's move to provide a backup source of electricity for its customers is part of a trend among city-owned utilities to gear up for expected power shortages during the dog days of summer. ???Healdsburg Santa Clara and Palo Alto -- all with their own electric grids -- are also initiating their own energy backup plans. ???The generators would kick in only during severe energy shortages when rolling blackouts are on the horizon. ???In Alameda four generators -- each the size of a tractor trailer -- arrived last week and are ready to be fired up Alameda Mayor Ralph Appezzato said yesterday. ???We're going to be the masters of our destiny he said. ???Alameda Power and Telecom is one of about 30 municipal utilities in California that opted not to deregulate with the rest of the state four years ago. Consequently its customers' power rates are expected to be stable this year while Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers face huge rate increases. ???But municipal utilities such as Alameda's are still part of the statewide power grid which is managed by the Independent System Operator and are subject to rolling blackouts like everybody else when the state's energy reserves dip below 1.5 percent. ???Each of Alameda's four diesel generators will produce 1.5 megawatts of power. Each megawatt can light up 1000 homes utility officials say. ???The units leased at a total cost of $68000 a month through the end of the year are parked at Alameda Point. ???Their cost will be paid through the municipal utility's reserve fund and customers' power bills won't be affected said Junona Jonas the utility's general manager. ???I think in the long run we'll see more supply in the state but until that happens there will be communities that'll have to take these short-term drastic measures Jonas said. ???The utility's spokesman Matthew McCabe said the diesel exhaust from the generators won't be an environmental factor. ???Our environmental record is extremely important to us McCabe said. The diesel generators are only for emergency backup. . . . Besides these things are clean -- it's not like standing next to a diesel bus. ???The city is also getting help from the U.S. Maritime Administration which operates more than a dozen ships at the former Navy station in Alameda. When the juice is low those ships will unplug from the port and use onboard generators Jonas said. ???In the North Bay Healdsburg officials are waiting for the arrival of two diesel generators. Combined they are expected to produce 3.5 megawatts of power which can account for about 20 percent of the city's expected summer peak load said Bill Duarte city utility director. ???We're taking matters into our own hands he said. ???Farther south both Santa Clara and Palo Alto are considering leasing portable generators officials said. ???Bill Reichmann senior electric utility engineer at Santa Clara's Silicon Valley Power said the utility is planning to lease eight generators operating them in the southeastern end of town near the San Jose International Airport. ???Palo Alto's municipal utility also has recommended that the City Council approve renting two generators starting next month said spokeswoman Rima Johnson.E-mail Matthew Yi at myi@sfchronicle.com. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ?????????????????Copyright 2001 The Chronicle Publishing Co. ?????????????????????????The San Francisco Chronicle ???????????????????APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS Pg. A3 LENGTH: 845 words HEADLINE: Davis' gouging claims disputed Officials say no link between PG&E bankruptcy high prices SOURCE: Chronicle Staff Writer BYLINE: David Lazarus BODY: Officials on the front lines of California's energy mess yesterday challenged Gov. Gray Davis' assertion that the state is being gouged by power companies because of PG&E's bankruptcy filing. ???Such dissent from the governor's own subordinates could make it harder for Davis to gain support for his energy measures in the state Legislature. ???Despite Davis' latest claims the Department of Water Resources which is spending about $70 million a day buying power said there is no evidence linking recent price increases to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. filing for bankruptcy protection on April 6. ???It is a seller's market said Viju Patel executive manager of the Department of Water Resources' power systems department. The power companies do not need an excuse to raise prices. ???Critics say Davis' penchant for secrecy on energy issues has come back to haunt him at a time when he needs all the allies he can find. ???People aren't taking his words at face value said Michael Shames executive director of the Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego. ???Republican lawmakers -- and even some Democrats -- have challenged a number of the governor's initiatives including a multibillion-dollar bailout scheme for Southern California Edison. ???Nevertheless Davis reiterated his belief yesterday that recent electricity price increases are an aberration driven by the bankruptcy of PG&E. ???He said California's spending on power jumped 40 percent in the week following PG&E's bankruptcy filing because generators say they face a greater risk of not being paid. ???Nothing else in the equation has changed said Steve Maviglio a spokesman for the governor. Everything is the same except the bankruptcy. ???However power companies were quick to challenge this assertion. They insisted that PG&E's bankruptcy actually was seen as a positive development by those in the energy business. ???If anything PG&E provides some solace for traders because the bankruptcy provides an organized mechanism for recovery of payments said Gary Ackerman executive director of the Western Power Trading Forum a Menlo Park energy-industry association. ???On the other hand he acknowledged that power companies are becoming increasingly wary of the state of California's creditworthiness as an energy buyer. ???The Department of Water Resources already has spent nearly $5 billion buying electricity and has yet to recoup a dime from ratepayers. State regulators are still trying to come up with a way to apportion the limited revenues from power rates among the various parties in California's energy picture. ???Rating agency Fitch Inc. said yesterday it may cut the state's credit rating because of questions surrounding recovery of energy costs. ???People are keeping an eye on things Ackerman said. They're watching how California finances things. ???If a premium on electricity sales to the state exists he said it probably has been in place since the beginning of the year well before PG&E's current woes. ???UCAN's Shames agreed. He said power companies added a risk premium to their California power sales late last year when it looked like the state's energy troubles were worsening. ???PG&E's bankruptcy may have increased the uncertainty Shames said but we've been paying a risk premium for months now. ???Richard Wheatley a spokesman for Reliant Energy in Houston insisted that his company's traders are not using questions about PG&E's or California's financial solvency as a fresh excuse for higher prices. ???I haven't seen any evidence of it he said. ???Mark Palmer a spokesman for Houston's Enron Corp. laid blame for recent price increases on low rainfall throughout the West which has cut output at hydroelectric facilities as well as on California's chronic power shortage. ???It's not that there's a premium on prices he said. It's just supply and demand. ???That said Palmer acknowledged that California's firm insistance on blackouts being avoided at all costs leaves the state vulnerable to virtually any price generators choose to demand. ???This means prices will be used to allocate a scarce resource he said. There's no other way it could work. ???Bottom line for consumers: It's going to be a long hot summer and electricity prices will soar even higher as demand surges. ???And despite the best efforts of state officials a daily threat of blackouts remains a virtual certainty as California's beleaguered power grid is stretched to the breaking point. ???At the Department of Water Resources' command center in a Sacramento shopping mall the state's team of electricity traders has moved onto a new high-tech trading floor where they negotiate power deals each day from the crack of dawn. ???The department's Patel said daily blackouts may be averted this summer after consumers see skyrocketing power prices reflected in their bills. ???People will respond to these prices and they are going to conserve like never before Patel predicted.E-mail David Lazarus at dlazarus@sfchronicle.com. GRAPHIC: PHOTO Gov. Gray Davis urged the California Energy Commission to approve construction of the proposed 600-megawatt power plant. / Associated Press LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ?????????????????Copyright 2001 The Chronicle Publishing Co. ?????????????????????????The San Francisco Chronicle ???????????????????APRIL 19 2001 THURSDAY FINAL EDITION SECTION: NEWS Pg. A3 LENGTH: 888 words HEADLINE: Davis backs San Jose power plant He also acknowledges bailout for Edison will be uphill fight SOURCE: Chronicle Sacramento Bureau BYLINE: Lynda Gledhill DATELINE: Sacramento BODY: Gov. Gray Davis urged the state Energy Commission yesterday to approve a controversial power plant in San Jose saying California needs every megawatt it can harness. ???Davis' recommendation runs counter to the wishes of the San Jose City Council and Mayor Ron Gonzales who have come out against the 600-megawatt Metcalf Energy Center in south San Jose's Coyote Valley. It also puts the governor at odds with one of his political allies Cisco Systems chief John Chambers whose company opposes the plant because it would be built near the tech firm's proposed new campus. ???Davis' announcement came the same day he all but admitted he lacks the support he needs in the state Senate for the deal he reached with Southern California Edison to restore the utility to financial health. Davis has portrayed that deal and construction of new power plants as essential to making California's energy market functional again. ???I think when we have an opportunity to put more power on line we should seize it Davis said. I believe we spend too much time talking about Metcalf. It's time to start building it. ???The Energy Commission has been reviewing the proposal by Calpine Corp. and Bechtel Enterprises Inc. for months. The commission's staff recommended in October that the plant be built and a final decision is expected by summer. If it is approved the plant could come on line next year and provide enough electricity for 600000 homes. ???None of the five commissioners could be reached yesterday. Three are Democrats appointed by Davis and two are Republicans appointed by former Gov. Pete Wilson. ???Gonzales and the rest of the City Council rejected the Metcalf plant in November. Until yesterday Davis had sat on the sidelines as the energy crisis deepened and a long line of state and federal officials including four of the five Assembly members from Silicon Valley urged the commission to overturn the council's vote. ???Some neighborhood groups oppose the plant along with computer networking giant Cisco which hopes to build a 20000-worker campus on a neighboring parcel. Cisco chief Chambers donated $50000 to Davis in the first six months of last year. ???Cisco's reaction yesterday was restrained. ???We have great respect for the governor and respect his decision said Cisco spokesman Steve Langdon. ???However Langdon added: We still have serious concerns about health and safety issues related to the proposed power plant. ???Some neighbors were much angrier. ???He's trying to act like he's the big bad tough governor and he's spineless said Issa Ajlouny who lives in the Santa Teresa neighborhood less than a mile from the proposed plant. He knows the approval process isn't working in his favor so he's trying to come out and act like a hero to the state of California. But he's nothing but backstabbing the city of San Jose on the environmental issues. ???Supporters of the plant see the 14 acres of former junkyard as the perfect site -- right next to Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s largest substation in the South Bay close to major transmission lines and shielded from its neighbors by a 350-foot hill. ???But a housing development is also nearby and residents fear the power plant will belch pollutants in an area already suffering from some of the worst air quality in the Bay Area. ???Mayor Gonzales continued to express his concern yesterday. ???I would support clean power plants that will help us achieve greater energy self-sufficiency for San Jose residents and business Gonzales said. As the Metcalf project has been designed and proposed to operate however it would present an unfair burden on our community. ???That's not what Davis said however calling Metcalf one of the cleanest most efficient plants in the country. ???Davis praised the efforts of Calpine/Bechtel to work with the local community and said he was especially pleased that the venture had agreed to commit all the power to the local region. ???The Silicon Valley is obviously the engine driving our economy but they are very dependent on outside power Davis said. ???Also in Sacramento yesterday after an hourlong session with Senate Democrats -- the toughest legislative sell for Davis' proposed Edison deal -- the governor all but admitted his plan could not win enough votes for Senate approval. ???I think he knew there weren't enough votes going in said Sen. Don Perata D-Oakland. But there may be a way of perfecting a deal people can at least think of supporting. ???Senate Democrats have openly opposed Edison's deal saying the only beneficiaries are Edison shareholders and power generators who would be paid every cent owed them by the utility -- at the expense of customers who would pay more to erase Edison's debt. ???Unlike his meeting with Assembly Democrats after which Davis said he was encouraged the governor said yesterday he wanted the Senate to appoint a special committee to iron out differences over the Edison deal. ???Senate President Pro Tem John Burton D-San Francisco said he was not aware a committee was being set up. He said he favored an up-or-down vote on Davis' current proposal.Chronicle staff writers Greg Lucas Alan Gathright and Maria Alicia Gaura contributed to this report. / E-mail Lynda Gledhill at lgledhill@sfchronicle.com. GRAPHIC: PHOTO Gov. Gray Davis urged the California Energy Commission to approve construction of the proposed 600-megawatt power plant. / Associated Press LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS 2001 Pacific Press Ltd. Vancouver Sun ????????????????????April 19 2001 Thursday FINAL EDITION SECTION: BUSINESS Pg. F1 / Front LENGTH: 731 words HEADLINE: B.C. Hydro's credit to California firms exceeded 1999 guidelines BYLINE: David Baines SOURCE: Vancouver Sun BODY: ??A confidential document issued in late 1999 shows that B.C. Hydro's power-trading subsidiary Powerex set a credit limit of $100 million US for its California customers. ??However by the end of 2000 Powerex had extended three times that amount of credit to those customers -- the California Independent System Operator and the California Power Exchange. With the California Power Exchange and Cal-ISO's major customer Pacific Gas & Electric under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection repayment of this debt is now in doubt. ??Powerex spokesman Wayne Cousins noted that the document obtained by The Vancouver Sun which is marked strictly confidential was issued in November 1999. ??That's an old copy of our risk-management policy he said in an interview Wednesday. ??Credit limits have changed since then based on careful assessment of several factors including market conditions risks maintaining long-standing relationships and helping California meet its electricity needs to prevent crisis situations. ??Temporary revisions were only implemented after very diligent review incorporating the best market intelligence available our own due diligence and on-going dialogue with appropriate market participants. ??He refused to say when the credit limits for Cal-ISO and the California Power Exchange were increased. ??That type of information is confidential. You have a copy that I assume was leaked in some way but this is commercially confidential information. ??He said the increase in credit limits helped B.C. Hydro achieve record net income of about $1 billion during the year ending March 31. This figures does not include any write-downs that may occur if Powerex determines that any of its customer accounts are not collectible. ??Cousins however was insistent that all debts will be collected: We continue to pursue monies owing and we expect to be paid for electricity we have sold. ??He noted that Powerex suspended trades to all California entities on Dec. 8 unless those trades were fully secured by creditworthy customers. ??By that time Cal-ISO and California had racked up an unpaid bill of about $ 300 million US or $475 million Cdn -- about half the net income that Hydro has tentatively reported for the year ending March 31. ??The confidential document states that Powerex's policies and procedures are designed to control the risk of financial loss due to changes in market prices or volatility and the risk that a counterparty (customer) in a commodity transaction defaults on delivery and/or settlement. ??It states that the amount of credit to be advanced to any customer depends on its credit rating. An AAA customer for example may be granted credit to a maximum of $20 million. ??Cal-ISO and California Power Exchange are not utilities they are power pools. They purchase power from Powerex and other suppliers and re-sell it to utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. ??The pools are not rated but are assigned specific credit limits. As of November 1999 Cal-ISO had a credit limit of $40 million US and the California Power Exchange $60 million US. ??The risk-management document notes that the credit-worthiness of these pools depends on that of its suppliers. ??The Powerex credit-risk manager and the treasury manager are responsible for initially evaluating and then monitoring the credit-authorization policies and credit limits for each power pool in which Powerex trades the document states. Significant alterations in the credit policies of a power pool will trigger a mandatory reappraisal of the power-pool credit limit. ??California has been caught in a power vice in recent months. The problem dates back to 1996 when the state developed a plan to deregulate the electricity business. Competition was supposed to lower rates below a price cap that had been imposed. ??However dry conditions cut the ability to generate hydro-electric power and a surge in the state's economy created unprecedented demand for electricity. Prices soared. ??The result was that the California utilities paid record prices for power but weren't allowed to pass along the full cost to consumers. ??Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison the state's two biggest utilities now owe about $12 billion. ??dbaines@pacpress.southam.ca TYPE: Business LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ?????????????????????April 18 2001 Wednesday BC cycle SECTION: Business News LENGTH: 348 words HEADLINE: Williams again target of overcharging allegations from federal regulators DATELINE: TULSA Okla. BODY: ??Federal regulators are once against targeting Williams for allegedly overcharging Californians for electricity. ??The Tulsa-based energy company was cited in a notice this week from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for allegedly overcharging California customers $25574 in March. ??Two other companies were also cited in the notice from federal regulators Monday. ??Dynegy Power Marketing Inc. of Houston was cited for overcharging California customers $469662 while Mirant California LLC of Atlanta was cited for overcharges of $92620. ??The commission told Williams and the other two companies to either refund the money or justify their prices which exceeded a price of $300 per megawatt hour that was set by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission because of the California's electricity shortage. ??Williams also was accused of excessive charges of $8 million in January and $ 21.6 million in February for a total of $29.6 million. ??Williams spokeswoman Paula Hall-Collins said while the overpricing allegations against Williams in March were not as significant as in the other months the process of justifying them will be the same as in previous months. ??They determine the price that they feel is fair and justifiable and then we come back and say why we charged what we did she said. ??Hall-Collins said federal regulators haven't said whether they are satisfied with how Williams justified its alleged overcharges from previous months. ??Also in March the commission accused Williams and AES Southland of generating less power to drive up electricity prices in May and June 2000 resulting in alleged overcharging of $10.8 million. ??Williams denies overcharging for electricity it provides. ??In other news Williams Express Inc. a unit of Williams announced Tuesday it was selling 198 MAPCO Express convenience stores to Israel-based Delek Group for $147 million. Most of the stores are in Tennessee and executives expect to close the deal by the end of May. ??Williams will keep 29 MAPCO stores in Alaska. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ???????????????????The Associated Press State & Local Wire The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. ?These materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The Associated Press. ?????????????????????April 18 2001 Wednesday BC cycle SECTION: State and Regional LENGTH: 332 words HEADLINE: Governor congressman to fight proposals for national power deregulation policy BYLINE: By MARGERY BECK Associated Press Writer DATELINE: LINCOLN Neb. BODY: ??Gov. Mike Johanns and Rep. Lee Terry R-Neb. said Wednesday they will be working to make sure national leaders understand Nebraska's stance on a national energy policy. ??Nebraska's unique status as the only 100 percent public power state in the nation and its reliance on the corn-based fuel additive ethanol make the state's input in the development of national energy policy important Johanns said. ??Public power has worked very well for Nebraska consumers by providing low cost electricity he said adding that the deregulated state of California has suffered through weeks of rolling blackouts. We are committed to protecting public power in this environment of deregulation. ??Terry said he has talked at length to the staff of Vice President Dick Cheney who has been tapped to come up with a national energy policy draft. That draft will end up before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on which Terry serves. ??There will be a discussion about a national deregulation policy Terry said. ??A national deregulation policy would threaten Nebraska's public power system Terry and Johanns said. Terry said he plans to push for a states' rights exemption to any such policy. ??It is absolutely necessary that Nebraska have a voice in that discussion Terry said. ??Terry said he also has pleaded with the Bush administration not to grant a request from California to wave the Clean Air Act's gasoline oxygen requirement. ??Such a move is considered a death knell to ethanol a clean-air fuel additive because other states would be expected to follow suit in requesting - and receiving - similar waivers thereby destroying ethanol's market. ??They did not telegraph their position on the waiver Terry said of White House which is expected to decide on California's request this spring. ??Other energy concerns Nebraska leaders hope to address are rising heating costs and gasoline prices which are expected to top $2 a gallon in Nebraska this summer. LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS ??????????????Copyright 2001 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News 2001 San Jose Mercury News Jose Mercury News 18 2001 Wednesday KR-ACC-NO: SJ-POWER-PLANT LENGTH: 1038 words HEADLINE: California Governor May Back Energy Firm's Proposed Power Plant BODY: ??Under intense pressure to increase California's energy supply Gov. Gray Davis is expected to announce today his support for Calpine Corp.'s proposed South San Jose power plant -- a move that could ensure the state's most controversial power project is built. ??Davis said for months that he would not interfere in the environmental review of the proposed 600-megawatt power plant. But a source close to the governor said Davis has decided to use Calpine's Coyote Valley project to send a signal that California is ready to build more power plants and is open to business. ??San Jose has strenuously opposed the power plant. But Davis' decision to urge the California Energy Commission to approve it would likely hold sway with the agency which has authority over where plants are located but has almost never overridden local opposition. ??The commission -- three of whose five members were appointed by Davis -- is expected to complete its environmental review and make a decision early this summer. ??A spokesman for the governor declined to confirm the endorsement. But late Tuesday the governor scheduled a press conference for this morning to make an important energy generation announcement. ??San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales declined to comment. But another of the plant's leading opponents pledged to keep fighting what would be the South Bay's largest power plant. ??An endorsement from Davis would cap a stunning turnaround for the project. ??Five months ago Calpine's Metcalf Energy Center was unanimously rejected by the San Jose City Council which decided that the power plant would be incompatible with the city's plans to develop high-tech campuses in North Coyote Valley. ??Some Calpine officials even considered giving up plans to build the power plant. ??But as California's energy woes intensified the Metcalf plant increasingly became a poster child for the need for more power generation to reduce the skyrocketing cost of electricity and avoid rolling blackouts. Silicon Valley one of the state's largest electricity consumers produces only a fraction of the energy it uses. ??Despite fierce opposition from local residents concerned about the environmental effects of a large power plant a steady stream of state and local organizations lined up behind the project including the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce and the local chapters of the Sierra Club and American Lung Association. ??The California Assembly voted unanimously in February to urge the energy commission to override San Jose and license the power plant. ??And top officials and attorneys at the energy commission have been working for months to ensure that the project wins approval a Mercury News investigation of the commission's environmental review of the project showed. The officials undermined negative environmental assessments of the Metcalf site and silenced commission analysts who said other sites would be better. ??The energy commissioners are weighing the staff's recommendation to approve the plant. ??Commissioner Robert A. Laurie who oversaw hearings on the project insisted at one hearing two months ago that the commission would complete an independent review. ??Although Davis has stressed his efforts to speed construction of new power plants the governor insisted he would not take a position on the project. ??The governor has repeatedly said he wants the process to play out Davis press secretary Steve Maviglio said last week. The governor believes the energy commission should complete its review. ??But there have been growing signs that Davis would throw his weight behind Calpine's project. ??A senior energy commission official said aides to the governor have been calling the commission for months to urge quick approval of the Metcalf plant. The governor's press secretary said no calls have been made. ??When Davis was looking for a backdrop to hold a press conference earlier this year to announce his plans to speed up approval of new power plants he chose Calpine's new plant in Sutter. ??The company also has actively campaigned for the governor's support. ??Earlier this year Calpine offered to sell the state cheaper power from the plant if it is approved. ??When Calpine and its development partner Bechtel Enterprises were looking for a lobbyist in Sacramento the companies turned to Platinum Advisors whose president Darius Anderson was finance chairman of Davis' 1998 gubernatorial campaign. ??The San Jose-based company gave the governor $ 19000 last year according to state campaign finance reports. ??Maviglio said the governor's ties to Calpine are no different from his relationship with Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers who has opposed the power plant. Campaign finance reports show Chambers gave Davis $ 50000 last year. ??Calpine officials said Tuesday they did not know of the governor's impending announcement. But they said they were not surprised. We've been working with the governor on a number of issues said project manager Ken Abreu. Metcalf is just one of them. ??Meanwhile Calpine's opponents in San Jose City Hall and in the neighborhood nearest the proposed power plant appear more isolated than at any time since the contentious debate over the Metcalf site began more than two years ago. ??Mayor Gonzales refused to comment on Davis' planned announcement. I don't respond to rumors said the mayor who has helped lead opposition to Metcalf. I have not heard anything. If he makes a statement I'll respond. ??But one of Calpine's fiercest local opponents said the nearby Santa Teresa neighborhood will continue to fight. We have a strong case said longtime South San Jose resident Issa Ajlouny. And we will win. ??The Mercury News strives to avoid use of unnamed sources. When unnamed sources are used because information cannot otherwise be obtained the newspaper generally requires more than one source to confirm the information. ??By Noam Levey and Mark Gladstone. Mike Zapler of the Mercury News contributed to this report. ??----- ??To see more of the San Jose Mercury News or to subscribe to the newspaper go to http://www.sjmercury.com JOURNAL-CODE: SJ LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 of 63 DOCUMENTS 2001 Scripps Howard Inc. Howard News Service 18 2001 Wednesday SECTION: DOMESTIC NEWS LENGTH: 588 words HEADLINE: Davis says Edison agreement may need altering SOURCE: Scripps-McClatchy Western Service BYLINE: EMILY BAZAR and KEVIN YAMAMURA DATELINE: SACRAMENTO Calif. BODY: ??Gov. Gray Davis indicated Wednesday that he may need to alter the agreement to purchase Southern California Edison's transmission lines if he wants legislators to approve the deal. ??Though the Democratic governor declined to discuss particulars he said he asked Senate leaders to appoint a special committee dedicated to resolving disagreements between the administration and lawmakers. ??Many provisions of the memorandum of understanding the document that lays out the terms of the Edison deal must be approved by the Legislature and the state Public Utilities Commission. ??There is a determination to try and solve this problem whether or not it means amending the MOU or trying a slightly different approach Davis said after meeting with Senate Democrats. ??A spokesman for the utility declined to comment on the governor's statements. ??Davis announced the Edison agreement April 9 just three days after Pacific Gas & Electric Co. unexpectedly cut off transmission line negotiations with the governor and filed for bankruptcy protection. ??The deal would require the state to pay $2.76 billion for Edison's transmission lines or 2.3 times book value. In addition a portion of consumer electricity rates would be dedicated to paying off the remainder of the utility's debt estimated at about $5 billion. ??Both Edison and PG&E stockpiled massive debt when wholesale electricity prices soared. Price caps prevented them from passing along the entire cost of electricity to consumers. ??Since the Edison deal was announced however legislators have been critical of certain provisions suggesting that California consumers will receive little in return for relieving the utility of billions of dollars in debt. ??It's clear that the deal as is could well be problematic said Senate President Pro Tem John Burton D-San Francisco. This has to do with what's in the bill what's in it for the people of the state. ??Lawmakers initially believed they would have little ability to change the agreement and referred to it as a take it or leave it deal. ??In fact the memorandum of understanding itself says the deal can be nullified in the event any law is passed adopted or repealed ... (which) would materially impede or frustrate the ability of the Parties to effectuate all of the elements of the plan as a package. ??But in his meeting with Senate Democrats Davis indicated he may be willing to compromise. His goal he said is to keep Edison from following PG&E into bankruptcy. ??We still have some work to do Davis said. I think the appointment of a special Senate committee assuming that happens will let us work through the detail in an appropriate fashion. ??Burton said he has not decided whether to appoint a committee. ??Other senators came out of the meeting guardedly optimistic that they could compromise with the governor. ??It was obvious that there were concerns from members said Sen. Don Perata D-Alameda. He is open and ready to have the proposal perfected as it moves through the legislative process. ??Sen. Jackie Speier D-Hillsborough said she hopes to amend the deal to ensure power generators are penalized for over-charging the utilities and the state for electricity. ??The way it's presently crafted (generators) are being rewarded she said. They are getting a premium for selling electricity at a higher premium than ever conceived of by humankind. ??(Contact Emily Bazar and Kevin Yamamura of the Sacramento Bee in California at http://www.sacbee.com.) LOAD-DATE: April 19 2001 ??? | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Daily Research reports | I would like to see research from all of these sources on areas of interest to enron -- energy and broadband North America and Europe. Thanks Henry Emery <HEMERY@firstunion1.com> on 07/19/2001 12:03:17 PM To: undisclosed-recipients: cc: Subject: Daily Research reports Attached are two research reports that I can send to you on a daily basis. One of our many benefits here at our new location is the availability of various research sources. The two reports I have attached are from : The First Union Securities Equity Marketing Group and Merrill Lynch We also have access to Goldman Sachs research and CS First Boston Research. Please let me know if you would like me to continue sending these reports on a daily basis or if you have any particular companies that you are interested in hearing about. Sincerely Hank Emery - Spotlight071801.pdf.pdf - smith.pdf.pdf | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Dinner Plans | I get in too late tonight but maybe dinner or drinks on Thurs? Linda Robertson 06/19/2001 06:39 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Subject: Dinner Plans You are here Wed and Thur nights. Do you have plans? Do you want to do something with some of the DC staff? | personal & social | casual | 3 |
null | We handed the Oped to DeLay's staff at lunch. I think we're finished for now. | other | casual | 0 |
Ackerman to talk to Wolak | Gary has been seeing Frank Wolak all over the place on the media scene. I asked him to ask Frank to do something POSITIVE and under the state's own control and push DA. Gary is also speaking to a bunch of CEOs (with Anjali of the ISO and Carl Wood) and he said he would carry our message to them as well. Sue Mara Enron Corp. Tel: (415) 782-7802 Fax:(415) 782-7854 | media & press | casual | 3 |
Board of Directors Meeting - August 14, 2001 | calendar and meeting file ----------------- | calendar & scheduling | formal | 3 |
Re: Wolak report | Sue: I'm so impressed that you know how to put the link on the email. I can't figure out how to do that and I think that looks much more high tech than attaching a silly old report. Thanks for the link. We can take it from here. Sarah Susan J Mara 12/22/2000 11:31 AM To: Sarah Novosel/Corp/Enron@ENRON Donna Fulton/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Jeff Dasovich/NA/Enron@Enron Subject: Wolak report Call me computer illiterate. I could not figure out how to download the report off the web site so here's the link. | information technology | friendly | 1 |
Time Magazine - Enron Plays the Pipes.... | this is fantastic!! ----------------- | media & press | excited | 0 |
Re: Ken Lay/ Jeff Skilling visits | No I had the right date from our previous communications. Nicholas O'Day 08/31/2000 09:25 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Maureen McVicker/HOU/EES@EES Subject: Ken Lay/ Jeff Skilling visits I have noticed a fairly significant typo in the note below. The correct date for the key note address is 26 October as set out in my first note. Did that impact on the issue of availability? ----------------- | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Bahamas LNG | I think it would be a good idea to get together. I would include Eric Thode as he has been living through the PR battles on a daily basis. James D Steffes 05/30/2001 08:31 PM To: Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron cc: Richard Shapiro/NA/Enron@Enron Michael Terraso/OTS/Enron@ENRON Kelly Kimberly/Enron Communications@Enron Communications Subject: Bahamas LNG Steve -- In a discussion today with Mike Kelly etc. it was apparent that the Public Affairs team viewed the Bahamas LNG transaction quite cautiously. Given the recent issues power plant development has had in Florida (big political fights that are going the wrong way) I was wondering if it made sense to bring together a meeting of all of Public Affairs and the deal team to analyze the implications of our development plans. My primary worry is that P/L under water could have severe ecological implications that are not being internalized into the transaction. I would like to try and arrange a meeting to (1) ensure Public Affairs coordination and (2) understand the deal impacts better. Please advise if I'm worrying for no good reason. Jim | other | formal | 3 |
Re: Confidential --CFTC Chair | Hi Steve Folks love Newsome and I think he's very nice and appears to be very free market. Spears the other Republican appointee is not at all free market in my view. I would not like this to mentioned anywhere else but I have found that the farm reps on the Commission may sound deregulatory but are not and have been really troublesome without a good free market person on board. And there are no truly free market persons on board at the Commission (every single other agricultural rep that I worked with on the Commission were trouble even though they claimed to be deregulatory -- and they were far worse before I got there and after I left.) I visited with Newsome a day before Inauguration and I was appalled at what they were planning to do concerning agency structure -- that would have elevated the regulatory lawyers and diminished the role of the economists at the agency. Misguided and showed to me a lack of understanding of how organizational structures can affect what comes out of an agency. I am often at odds with the industry view regarding CFTC issues. I don't think the futures exchanges who have a lot of power necessarily are pro-competition and many of the non-exchange folks who lobby on CFTC issues are Washington or New York (Democrat - which is why they want to involve Ken at this level) lawyers who do not understand markets and who are more interested in being able to claim influence or impact. The CFTC is in awful shape -- the quality of staff is horrendous and the Commission is relying on some of the worst people for their policy work (same folks that Brooksley Born used same folks who have advocated more regulation of the OTC market for years). Many quality folks do not want the job as Chairman because it's been such a backwater. I am looking for some good folks. Have at least one person who would be good at that job. And it's not Newsome. Please do not share this information with the usual folks as they hate me anyway (I'm too free market and have argued against their fixes). Sorry for this scathing review but this is an important appointment. Wendy | other | confidential | 5 |
Dinner with Craig Goodman - Cancelled | 202-333-3288 | personal & social | casual | 0 |
Confidential - ENhome Program | The purpose of this message is to provide key areas (specifically IT Suppor= t=20 and Purchasing Organizations which might receive questions about the new=20 ENhome program) with preliminary information about the ENhome program as we= ll=20 as a standard message to deliver. The goal is to communicate a consistent= =20 message to all of our employees. Please keep in mind that changes are stil= l=20 being made at this time so your discretion is welcomed until the internal= =20 communication has been distributed. At the same time please inform the=20 appropriate individuals within your area that you believe might receive=20 questions. What is ENhome? An OTC approved program that will provide eligible employee= s=20 (active regular full-time and part-time employees whose business units ele= ct=20 to participate) at home with high-end internet devices broadband internet= =20 connection (where commercially available) and an employee-centric portal fo= r=20 personal use.=20 Attached to this message are three documents concerning this new program. = =20 These documents are: ENhome PowerPoint Presentation - High-level presentation provided to all of= =20 the Business Unit=01s Human Resource Departments describing the program. = =20 ENhome Draft of Internal Communications =01) This is a draft of the interna= l=20 communication that will be sent to eligible employees. I will send you the= =20 final copy when it has been approved. ENhome Q&A Draft =01) This is a draft of the Q&A document in case you may= =20 encounter these questions. Please review this document and if you feel the= re=20 are additional questions that need to be addressed let me know and I will= =20 work to get these answered. This program is scheduled to be announced to all eligible Enron employees a= t=20 either the end of this week or early next week. Remember that these=20 attachments are drafts and may be changed. As soon as I receive final=20 copies I will forward them to you. =20 Questions regarding the message from the Office of the Chairman concerning = =01&A=20 Computer for You and Your Family=018 should be responded to as: This program is being sponsored by Enron=01s Office of the Chairman and w= ill=20 be coordinated by Corporate Human Resources. The Global Information=20 Technology unit of Enron Net Works and Global Strategic Sourcing are workin= g=20 in conjunction with Corporate Human Resources to support this endeavor. =20 Details about this program are still being finalized and will be communicat= ed=20 as they become available. An eSpeak session will be scheduled in the near= =20 future where you will have an opportunity to ask questions. If you have any additional questions regarding this program or the=20 communications that will be released please feel free to contact me at=20 713-853-7947. Thanks Susan | other | formal | 3 |
Weekly Retail Meeting, EB 27C1 | John Anderson PTC/NERC Brad Petzold Power Nav -- John Henry (202) 466-0547 | other | formal | 3 |
RE: Moving foward at a good clip | Call at 5:00 today (3:00 your time) if you can. | project management | casual | 3 |
Meeting Notice - California Document Production Issues | calendar ----------------- | other | casual | 3 |
Charts from Terry Thorn | ----------------- | other | neutral | 3 |
GENERATOR ORGANIZATION | ----------------- | other | neutral | 0 |
<<Concur Expense Document>> - JB 005 | ----------------- | finance | formal | 3 |
Re: Draft Organizational Announcement about Japan | Suggested changes are highlighted below. John Sherriff@ECT 04/24/2001 12:55 AM To: (713) 529-7757 Ken Rice/Enron Communications Kevin Hannon/Enron Communications Mark Frevert/NA/Enron Greg Whalley/HOU/ECT Mike McConnell/HOU/ECT@ECT Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron Mark Palmer/Corp/Enron@ENRON Joseph P Hirl/AP/ENRON@ENRON Jeremy Thirsk/AP/Enron@ENRON Morten E Pettersen/AP/Enron@Enron Nicholas O'Day/AP/Enron@Enron Jackie Gentle/LON/ECT Richard Shapiro/NA/Enron@Enron Jeffrey McMahon/HOU/ECT Jeffrey A Shankman/Enron@EnronXGate Raymond Bowen/enron@enronxgate Joe Gold/LON/ECT@ECT Bryan Seyfried/LON/ECT@ECT Jeff Kinneman/HOU/ECT Rebecca McDonald/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT Carey Brian Stanley/EU/Enron Michael R Brown/LON/ECT Mark Evans/Legal/LON/ECT Fernley Dyson/LON/ECT Ted Murphy/LON/ECT@ECT Rick Buy/HOU/ECT Richard Causey/Corp/Enron Mark E Haedicke/HOU/ECT@ECT Drew C Lynch/LON/ECT David Oxley/HOU/ECT@ECT John J Lavorato/Enron@EnronXGate lkitchen@enron.co.uk cc: Subject: Draft Organizational Announcement about Japan May I please have your comments if any on this draft by close of business Wednesday. We hope to have agreed on the Q&A's by then and to send it out the announcement on Thursday. John To be sent to: All Enron Europe all employees in Japan all Global Markets and all VPs and up around the company Enron has established several wholesale businesses in Japan in the last year including Metals Power Plant Development (via our investment in EnCom) Coal LNG & Weather. We see significant opportunities in each of these businesses and we will continue to expand our presence in Japan in order to capture these opportunities. However while Japan continues to make progress towards a liberalized electricity market significant barriers to power trading remain under the current interim market structure. Until further tangible steps are taken to improve third party access for electricity in Japan we will suspend our power marketing efforts and focus on the significant opportunities that currently exist in our other wholesale businesses. [Any statement regarding our existing power sales commitment?] Once the necessary regulatory changes have been completed we expect to aggressively pursue Enron's traditional position as the leading buyer and seller of electricity in every deregulated market. We are making a number of organization changes in order to better align our resources with the opportunities in the Japanese market. [deleted text] Joe Hirl our President of Enron Japan will move to the Global Markets group and lead a team that will focus on developing all our Global Markets opportunities in Japan especially Weather Oil LNG Coal and Shipping. We expect to continue our general recruiting of Japanese nationals and as President of Enron Japan Joe will continue to provide the overall business leadership to both recruiting and the Analyst and Associate program in Japan. The Finance origination team headed by Jeremy Thirsk will continue to report to Joe and also move to Global Markets. Our power trading group led by Morton Erik Pettersen will transition into other roles around Enron. The Equity/FX/Interest rate team which is a part of Global Markets has two employees in the Tokyo office today and they expect to expand their efforts throughout the year. The EnCom group which is our power plant development business (with minority partners) and headed by Carey Sloan will continue its efforts in developing power plants in Japan. We are pleased with the progress we are making on a number of sites and EnCom will continue to report to the Enron Europe Office of the Chairman. Our Metals team headed by Kazunari Sugimoto will continue to report through Enron Metals in London. By May we expect Enron Credit to have two to three employees in Tokyo pursing the Credit Derivative business. These employees remain in Enron Credit a part of Enron Europe. EBS has two employees headed by Jim Weisser and this team expects to expand by year end. The Industrial Markets team also expects to have two employees in the Tokyo office in the next couple of months. In the last seven months the commercial support services for Japan have been transitioned to London for support and this is not changing. Jane McBride heads the legal team and will continue to functionally report to Mark Evans General Counsel in London. The RAC function will continue to report to Ted Murphy head of RAC for Enron Europe. The Risk Management and Accounting team is headed by Jan-Erland Bekeng will continue to functionally report to Fernley Dyson in London. The IT HR Tax and real estate teams will also continue to functionally report to London. Nick O'Day who heads the Public Affairs group (Government & Regulatory Affairs and the Public Relations) in Japan will report to the Enron Europe Office of the Chair with a Public Relations functional reporting to Jackie Gentle in London and a Government Affairs functional reporting to Rick Shapiro in Houston. We anticipate that his team's efforts will be primarily directed to supporting the EnCom power plant development team but they will also continue to provide support for Global Markets EBS & Industrial Markets. We have already made considerable progress in breaking into the Japanese markets across a wide range of Enron businesses and we anticipate that this will provide significant profit growth for years to come. Through these current changes we can demonstrate our ability to be flexible and target our resources where they will realise the most immediate value for the company. | other | formal | 3 |