Electricity Crisis and Rate Hikes

* Re “Rate Hike Needed to Rescue Electric Utilities, Davis Says,” Dec. 20: Why should the public pay for a bureaucratic mistake? Why should the public bail out the utilities? It makes no sense for us to pay more to allow others to reap huge profits. Where is the accountability? Right now the accountability is hidden in the politics. Edison International CEO John Bryson says he was forced to sell his plants (Commentary, Dec. 20), and the news says the utilities begged for deregulation. Why does this seem to be rolling straight to rate hikes?

Where are the smart people who protect the public? Who’s asking the hard questions? This is wrong, and the way you can tell is if the members of the public had a choice they would switch utilities or move to the DWP district. In this age of recalls, I suggest we recall the deregulation and get back the prior way of doing business.

ROBERT HOOKS

Castaic

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We’re not having an electric power crisis--we’re having a selfishness crisis. We want cheap power, but no more ugly power plants; air conditioners for one and all, but no more hydroelectric dams because some fish can’t spawn; televisions in all the rooms, VCRs, computers, GameBoys, 24-hour Internet access and golf courses lit for night play, but no more nuclear plants lest someone get a rash from a radiation leak. Like a teenager who wants to spend $20 on junk food but only has a $10 allowance, we are throwing a collective temper tantrum and blaming Mom (greedy utilities) for not letting us have it both ways.

DAVID W. HUNTINGTON

Los Angeles

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It’s impossible to feel sorry for Bryson’s sniveling about Southern California Edison’s bankruptcy, when he was one of the chief architects of the entire energy crisis. Bryson and his regulated utility buddies wanted to try out a little bit of competition, while still retaining regulatory protection as a fallback, thinking competition was some sort of a neat new game to play.

Well, it’s time for Bryson to face up to the consequences of his incompetence. He designed, paid for and implemented this worst-case scenario, and bankruptcy is a right he earned and deserves for failure in the real world of competition. Maybe the L.A. DWP will take pity on SCE and buy it out for 10 cents on the dollar to get Bryson completely out of the regulated era once and for all.

ANTHONY N. ST. JOHN

Retired SDG&E; Principal

Engineer, San Diego

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Calling our current electric near-crisis situation “deregulated” is a complete fantasy. In 1996 the Legislature passed an electricity restructuring bill that was really a bundle of compromises that offered something for everyone involved except the people paying the electric bills.

No true market was created for the buying and selling of electric power. Instead, government agencies devise plans to match supply and demand and, guess what, lots of times they are wrong and have to purchase power at the last minute for the highest price. Utilities are unable to purchase power in advance; they have to do it the day before, and they have no ability to shop around for the lowest price. It was a bad bill, it is a bad plan and it has nothing to do with true deregulation.

PETER DE BAETS

Santa Monica