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West Needs Rate Caps on Electricity by Editorial Board Seattle Post-Intelligencer - December 31, 2000

But Locke warns 'aggressive action' a possibility

As the Western states reel under the effects of a shortage of electricity, all eyes are turned in disbelief to California and its monumental mismanagement of its energy supplies.

For its part, California is eyeing the Northwest's Bonneville Power Administration for relief from that state's energy shortage, which has helped drive wholesale prices sky-high all over the West.

But sharing the BPA's low cost power with all comers is not the answer to California's woes. Fixing that state's botched attempt to deregulate its electrical market is a better solution. So are bringing more generating capacity on line and launching more vigorous conservation efforts.

Conservation produced 800 megawatts of peak-hour electricity at one point in the recent crisis after Gov. Gary Locke and Oregon's Gov. John A. Kitzhaber put out a call for conservation, according to BPA officials, who have been told by California officials not to expect a single megawatt of help this winter in meeting Northwest power needs.

Locke and Kitzhaber tried unsuccessfully to persuade the other Western governors to request that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission impose a short-term fixed-price cap on the wholesale cost of electricity as the best way to bring stability back to the short-circuiting Western power grid.

But Montana, which also is entangled in an unworkable experiment in deregulation, and Idaho, which produces more power than it can use and is awash in profits from exports, didn't bother to attend. And governors of Utah, Colorado and Wyoming preside over states that so far, apparently, haven't been pinched enough to see the wisdom of stablizing the market with a temporary fixed regional rate cap.

Nonetheless, it's a good idea. January and February are nearly upon us, and the fun has barely begun.