The money would help Lockyer widen his current criminal probe and make broader use of his power to subpoena records. But if they're illegally gaming or manipulating the market, the attorney general will track them down. He has company. Five government agencies are investigating the power shortage, ranging from the obscure state Electricity Oversight Board to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Now, whenever a state power plant unexpectedly shuts down, California Public Utilities Commission inspectors are dispatched to see why.
Federal inspectors are also spot-checking plants that have gone offline.
Some agencies have gotten more cooperation than others. Just last week, one PUC investigator was kept waiting nearly nine hours because officials at a generating station in Long Beach would not admit him without a written explanation, according to the PUC's director of consumer services, Richard Clark. The company that operates the plant, AES Corp., denies that anyone was kept outside, according to Aaron Thomas, an AES manager. All this new intensity in trying to uncover potential wrongdoing may be for nothing. Even some of the industry's sharpest critics acknowledge that the suppliers may be operating within the law.