Turning Up the Thermostat

* Regarding the Aug. 9 commentary by Geoffrey Rothwell on turning up the thermostat to control personal electricity usage: As a resident of San Diego County and a customer of San Diego Gas & Electric, it is mildly irksome to me to have someone suggest that all of us in this part of California are either power hogs or are personally responsible for the lack of new electrical generating facilities in the rest of the state.

It would be interesting to see how everyone else in California would react if their electric power rates were increasing at the current rates of San Diego Gas & Electric.

We have no air-conditioning system, so turning up the thermostat is not an option.

IVAN EDELMAN

La Mesa

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We are now reaping the results of deregulating the utility industry in California. This “deregulation” reflected the same “get the government off our backs” mentality which is also promoting privatization of Social Security and opposing proposals to regulate the pricing and advertising policies of the pharmaceutical industry. It is time we recognized that unregulated big business only benefits the big business which is unregulated.

BENNETT LEWIS

Capistrano Beach