Bailing Out State’s Power Companies

* Re “Governor, Legislators Moving Toward Bailout of Utilities,” Jan. 5: I don’t know much about businesses, especially utilities, but I do know they don’t go broke overnight. There are signs. Big ones. So if Californians are going to be asked to bail these companies out, to pay the financial price for someone’s negligence, then that someone--or someones--in the utility companies and the PUC should have to pay the price too. And I don’t mean a slap on the wrist. Someone has to be accountable.

BART BRAVERMAN

Los Angeles

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When deregulation started, PG&E; and SoCal Edison couldn’t unload power plants fast enough. They had to get those millstones off their necks. We now know those millstones were made of solid gold.

Which prompts the questions: Where are all the millions of dollars these utilities got for these power plants? Did utility managers squander it all on fast cars and fancy clothes? Did they invest it against this sort of possibility? Did they lose it through a hole in their jeans pockets?

Just asking.

LOUIS MRAZ

Los Angeles

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Despite the noble principles of free enterprise, in many cases deregulation equals price gouging. The gougers must be dealt with (punitively, as necessary) if they are to do business with California, the most populous state in the United States.

Americans should not fall prey to “free enterprise” in such areas as health, education, the air we breathe, the water we drink, electricity and gas, to name some essentials. Gouging (and profit guarantees at the expense of the public) in these areas must be eliminated, period.

MANUEL E. NUNES

Garden Grove

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When my City Council member, my county supervisor, my state or federal legislator or my president next assails me with rhetoric about how entrepreneurs are deserving of special treatment regarding taxes, I will remember the winter of 2000-2001, when the risk-takers hounded after the ratepayers for shelter from the cold and dark of the winter they, the risk-takers, created.

LOUIS ST. MARTIN

Pomona