The daily monitor leader. [volume] (Mount Clemens, Mich.) 1942-19??, 1945-06-19
. BEHIND THE SCENES
IN WASHINGTON .

power will differ with the con-
clusion to that flat statement,
it merely proves how much in
fluence p. G.. & e. still has In
California affairs. For p. C. 4
E. is an $500, 600, 900 corporation
with an income of $3.50, 900, 900
a year, q combination Of some
$50 companies doing 90 per cent
of the electric power business In
the northern part Of the state.
1t is tough competition to
heath. Competition from priv
ate business hasn't a chance and
even publicly owned competition
finds the going difficult.
MUNICIPAL
OWNERSHIP SMALL
Rural Identification Admins
tration power co-operatives
haven't been able to make q be-
ginning in this area. There are
less than 80 municipality owned
distribution systems, all small.
The city of San Francisco owns
the power production facilities
at its Hetch Hetchy water supply
system in the Yosemite National
Park, and the Bureau of Reclaim
alton owns the power produced
at Shasta Dam. Both of these
producers Of big power now
have to sell to p. G. & E. yet
both are ambitious to get into
the power distribution business
on their own account and in
what they conceive to be the
public interest, believing they
can sell cheaper and force the
private utility to lower rates.
Furthermore, from Washing
ton, Secretary of the Interior
Harold Ickes is making noises
like wanting to get complete
control of all the valley author
ities-Tennessee, Missouri, Col
umbia and CALIFORNIA; Central
Valley project. Ickes being a
great advocate of public power,
private power operators in all
these areas have reason for
stopping and thinking about
what may hit them next.
In the Tennessee Valley, PRIV
ate power companies had to
knuckle under and sell out to
the government.
A Columbia River Authority,
using power developed at the
government Bonneville an d
Coulee Dams, could probably
force the same thing.
In northern California the sit
uation is different because here
p. G. & K. is bigger than the gov
eminent power interests, we'll
managed private business that
gives good service.
If the government goes into
active competition with P. G. &
E., the government will have to
build steam generating plants
wh1cn will produce power when
the hydro-electric power can't
be delivered in sufficient and
firm quantity, build transmission
lines, then 60 after some of P. G..
& f. S present customers.
SHOULD GOVERNMENT
COMPETE?
In all the hullabaloo about
saving private business and let
ting private business do the Job
of providing full employment, is
there more to be gained by set
ting the government up as a
competition? Or should public
works projects, which the tag
payer must eventually finance
anyway, be planned to fit into
the private business pattern?
The drawback to the latter is
that it permits private business
to make profits off the public
taxpayers investments, though
the public can get its money
back through taxes levied on
private business.
This is an endless argument
with many fine points Of bal
ance which make snap judgment
impossible. But it all shows
how even the biggest of these
projects are finally reduced to
an issue affecting the daily af-
fairs of every citizen who pays