Big Rate Hikes

* The Public Utilities Commission’s reasons for the rate hike are a joke (March 27). It appears that the PUC blames the consumers for the current power problems and not the greedy power companies or the lame-duck politicians in Sacramento. Greedy people artificially generate this problem.

Electricity is not a luxury item, but it appears to be becoming one for many people. This rate hike is another reason for business to stay out of California or to leave. California has driven many companies out already. California’s economy will suffer and will pay the penalty for this artificial mess.

ED WOO

Long Beach

*

I have sat back looking at what the electrical system has been deregulated to in the last five years. Loretta Lynch, president of the PUC, now says we have to pay over 40% more on our bills. (Cheap power under deregulation.) What spot is she looking for in Bush’s Cabinet? The PUC, state Energy Commission, FERC and Legislature all have their hands in the pot making it worse by the day.

The private companies were doing just great until those loud-mouthed consumer advocates got hold of the public ear and lied through their teeth. The public better look at what’s going on real close so they know whom to vote for next election.

JOHN KELLY

Yucca Valley

*

Cal-ISO, the independent electrical system operator, has recently released figures which show that between December 1999 and December 2000 demand for electricity increased by less than 1%. Our bills have already gone up, and now the knuckleheads at the PUC are suggesting that we raise rates by 40%! What are these people doing, and who is representing the interests of the citizens over the interests of Duke Energy, Reliant Energy, Enron Corp., et al.? We’ve been robbed for a year by these gougers, and now they want to raise our rates so the robbers can reap even bigger profits than the 200% to 500% gains this year? I smell a revolution coming.

BRYAN HAYS

Saugus

*

Re “Davis Ducks Reality on Electricity ‘Overcharges,’ ” Commentary, March 27: Trying to blame Gov. Gray Davis’ management of the power extortion game that is going on just doesn’t work. Try to shift attention as much as Benjamin Zycher and Gary Ackerman want, but they cannot hide the fact that the generation companies made good profits when they sold energy for as little as 10% of what they are able to charge now. I don’t buy it. And I don’t buy the argument that gas “costs” have gone sky-high. Gas “costs” are the same. The gas companies have also found ways to just charge more for the same thing. Now, with a bought-and-paid-for administration in Washington, they are bold enough to just keep on doing it while denying everything.

I am for canceling deregulation until this group of energy company executives are prosecuted, jailed, replaced, made examples of what executives should not become, and are just a bad memory.

BOB GILBERG

San Diego

* Economist Ross C. DeVol [of the Milken Institute] is quoted: “Somebody’s got to pay. We’ll pay either as consumers or as taxpayers” (March 26). Perhaps he can inform me which of these I am not.

ANN C. CHISOLM

Oxnard