Power: Bush Plan, Davis Reactions

Bravo to President Bush for taking a long-term approach to solving our nation’s energy problem (May 17), an approach that most politicians and the people who elect them are unwilling to take on any issue. It is not up to the citizens of the other 49 states to bail California out of a problem we brought upon ourselves.

Dick Fischer

Burbank

The way I see it, the White House R-OIL-TY apparently wasted no time in using its “power” to play energy-shortage games. Don’t Bush and Vice President Cheney notice that people notice manipulation? Do they think we the people are stupid?

Gayle Weiner

Malibu

While we may not agree with all aspects of the administration’s energy plan, it is obvious that the country needs an integrated energy plan. Cheney obviously took a hard and practical look at what can be accomplished and reached the conclusion that natural gas cannot meet all our needs. Nuclear, which generates no greenhouse gases or air pollution, is a logical choice. The industry has the capability to build new plants in this country. Several standardized designs have been pre-licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The vendors have experience building some of these plants, having sold some overseas. The challenge for the administration and the utilities is to counteract the self-serving scare stories recycled endlessly by the opposition. Supporters can point to an outstanding safety record in the U.S. and to the enviable economic performance established by our 103 operating nuclear power plants.

James E. Owens

La Canada

The only missing criticism of the president’s energy policy is that it was printed on paper, thus endangering a tree somewhere. But then, if it had been issued electronically, we would have suffered a blackout, caused by the lack of any coherent energy policy for 20 years.

James A. Martens

La Quinta

Why are conservatives so liberal with energy resources?

Todd Mason

Mar Vista

Something’s missing. There has been no reference to population growth as the biggest factor driving growth of energy consumption. Future population growth is still an open question; it hasn’t been debated or decided. How can the Bush administration know how many power plants we have to build in the next 20 years, when Americans, in private, are saying continued population growth is unsustainable and must be reined in at some point?

Pierre Bierre

Pleasanton, Calif.

Gov. Gray Davis complains that a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order allows California’s alternative energy generators (wind, solar, biomass, etc.) to sell energy in excess of contractual requirements on the open market and leaves it up to the courts to allow all their energy to be sold on the open market (May 17). The governor is upset because some generators were no longer producing for lack of funds, and he had been negotiating with the generators to get them paid and back on line. If so, why did he not just pay them what they were due, long before they were forced to shut down? Then they could continue supplying at contractual prices. Instead, he chose to string them along while paying very high prices on the spot market to Houston’s Reliant Energy and others that he termed price gougers.

Despite higher electric bills, the Democrats expect the Republicans to stay leaderless and the electorate blind. That may change as businesses flee the state and higher energy prices stay for decades, with just the opposite in Texas and surrounding states.

Raymond J. Rostan

Orange

Davis is spouting pure hypocrisy as he takes on Reliant Energy (May 17). He mentions no word of Enron, another “gouger.” Why? Because the state public employees’ retirement system is heavily invested in Enron, and, in fact, CalPERS has a billion-dollar business deal with Enron aside from stock. The state and Enron are business partners. CalPERS is also invested in many other energy companies. If one studies the energy sector of the financial world, CalPERS is in the midst of everything. And CalPERS, because of its large stock holdings, has the power of influence over corporate boards.

So Davis, who has spent the past two years raising campaign funds, is really just laying down a diversion. The state is an energy gouger and profits from it.

Andy Levinson

Thousand Oaks