Renegotiate on Energy

Re “Undoing Costly Power Deals,” editorial, Nov. 30: It may have been unwise for Gov. Gray Davis to lock the state into long-term contracts at $75 per megawatt-hour, but hindsight is easy. Open-market electricity sells for about $25 per megawatt-hour. These numbers are probably confusing to consumers. Most of us pay around 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. Of that cost, about 2those cents is for the energy itself; 12those cents is for transmission to our homes.

With the energy cartels created by deregulation, the state could have been squeezed with energy costs of 50 cents per kilowatt-hour ($500 per megawatt-hour). We should renegotiate the electricity contracts, if possible, but it’s unfair to criticize Davis for his handling of a difficult crisis that was not of his making. By the way, I’m a Republican.

Bill Serantoni

Thousand Oaks