Critics Say Bush Proposal Leaves California in the Dark

California lawmakers, analysts and others waist-deep in the state’s power crisis reached a single conclusion Thursday about the White House energy plan:

By the time many of President Bush’s proposals kick in, it will be too late to do the Golden State much good.

“This plan does absolutely nothing to help California get through the next critical 18 months,” groused state Sen. Debra Bowen (D-Marina del Rey). “You can’t focus just on the long term here. Because the patient will be dead before we get the life-support systems in place.”

Gov. Gray Davis and others say the single best step Bush could take to help the state is to impose controls on runaway electricity prices that are draining California’s treasury and forcing massive utility rate increases.

Instead, the president has offered an energy blueprint anchored by an expansion in drilling for natural gas and oil, increased reliance on nuclear power and more than $10 billion in tax credits for conservation and energy development.

Most of Bush’s proposals, however, are slow-acting remedies, and many others already are being applied in California, which was hit by energy woes far ahead of other states.

The plan’s dozens of incentive programs designed to boost output or promote conservation cannot be ramped up in time to protect the state from blackouts and painful spikes in electricity prices, experts say.

“Overall, the message in this plan is, ‘Drop dead, California,’ ” said Eric Heitz of the Energy Foundation, a San Francisco-based research and advocacy group.

“I don’t think it delivers another megawatt to California,” added Loretta Lynch, president of the California Public Utilities Commission.

State economic analysts say the plan fails California by viewing the power crisis as an ongoing emergency, rather than a temporary one. California’s supply crunch should ease dramatically by summer 2003, once 27 new power plants--15 of them licensed, 12 in the pipeline--start churning.

“It’s not that we don’t have long-term problems,” said Stephen Levy, director of the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. “It’s just that energy isn’t among them.”

Others, including many environmentalists, say Bush could have made a noticeable impact by, for example, beefing up energy efficiency programs--a quick, clean and relatively inexpensive way to cut demand.

“Why not provide aggressive incentives [rebates] to get people to purchase more efficient air conditioners?” asked Dan Reicher, assistant Energy secretary in the Clinton administration. “Over the course of the year, a program like that can make a dramatic difference” because air conditioning consumes nearly one-third of California’s peak energy supply.

Instead, Reicher noted, Bush earlier this year rolled back efficiency standards for air conditioners, a move that critics say will require the country to build 43 new power plants.

Even the few elements of the plan that looked promising for California were clouded by doubt.

Bush, for example, directed the Energy secretary to explore ways to relieve a key transmission bottleneck, known as “Path 15,” between Northern and Southern California. But he specified that the upgrade, which requires building a 90-mile line at an estimated cost of $225 million, be funded by “nonfederal contributions”--meaning the financially strapped utilities might be expected to bear the cost.

Gov. Davis, who lately has stepped up his pleas for help from Washington, said the Bush plan offers too little too late for California and criticized the president for allowing “the price-gouging energy companies, many of which reside in Texas, to get away with murder.”

Davis said the state is “doing everything possible to build and conserve our way out of the problem,” but it desperately needs federal price controls on energy costs. In 1999, California energy users spent about $7 billion; this year, even with consumption down 5%, the bill could top $50 billion.

But Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who led the task force that prepared the plan, are opposed to price caps, preferring to let market forces reign.

Davis said that laissez faire approach puts California’s economy in peril.

“Just saying, over the long haul, everything will work out is turning a blind eye to the bleeding and hemorrhaging that exist in this state,” Davis said. “Small businesses . . . literally will go out of business because they can’t afford these rates.”

Analysts who studied the Bush plan say they are particularly disappointed because it covers a lot of ground already plowed by California.

Bush recommends building 1,900 power plants over the next 20 years--about eight plants a month. But California is already on a plant-building spree that will give it a comfortable supply within two years.

The president also wants to streamline approval of plants and is pushing for a renewed commitment to nuclear power. The California governor, however, has already ordered expedited licensing of new plants under an executive order issued in February.

There is little evidence, meanwhile, that Californians are eager to approve an expansion in nuclear power. Nationwide, not one new nuclear plant has been licensed in more than 20 years. And a Times Poll in February found that 60% of Californians oppose more nuclear reactors in the state.

“You can barely build clean-burning gas plants here, let alone nuclear plants,” said Edward Kahn, a San Francisco-based energy consultant with Analysis Group/Economics.

Among other elements of the plan that could affect California is a proposal to allow federal authorities to take private land for power lines. Currently, the U.S. government’s power to forcibly acquire private property applies only to highways and gas pipelines. Expanding that power is likely to enrage property owners and property-rights advocates, who typically expect backing from Bush-style conservatives.

“I’m just surprised that this administration would want to preempt the state’s [authority] over its own land,” said Lynch of the PUC.

The issue is already heated in California. Communities in southwestern Riverside County have mobilized to resist San Diego Gas & Electric’s attempts to use eminent domain to obtain private land for 31 miles of transmission lines. The Legislature is considering a bill that would require state energy officials and utilities to grab public land first before reaching for private acreage.

Bush also proposed a unified, private national electricity grid, an idea that seems at odds with Southern California Edison’s effort to sell its transmission lines to the state. But Edison officials said they hope to have their deal worked out long before the president’s idea comes to fruition--if it ever does.

Unveiling his energy program in St. Paul, Minn., Bush said he is “deeply concerned about the impact of blackouts on the daily lives of the good people of the state of California.”

But S. Davis Freeman, the former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power chief who is now the governor’s energy advisor, said Bush has let down the state by failing to “answer the 911 call.”

“It’s like your house is on fire,” Freeman said. “You call the fire department, and they say, ‘No, we’re not coming, but we’re building a super-duper firetruck that will be ready five years from now.’ ”

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Reaction to the Plan

“It’s slick. It’s colorful. It really looks like the Exxon Mobil annual report, and maybe that’s really what it is.”

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.)

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“The president’s plan strikes the right balance by successfully boosting conservation, implementing renewable fuels and 21st century technologies and ensuring safe exploration.”

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.)

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“This lengthy document will not provide one more kilowatt to California this summer, prevent one less minute of blackouts or keep one less dollar from being transferred from California into the hands of Texas-based energy producers.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)

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“By emphasizing supply and production, the policy encourages the destruction of the last wild places in America.”

Audubon Society President John Flicker

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“I don’t think it (gas prices) is a federal government problem. I think it’s a free-market problem.”

Tom Mitchell, 58, an executive recruiter from Pasadena

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Times staff writers Dan Morain and Richard Simon and researcher Patti Williams contributed to this story.