troll,

Deregulation was pushed by the utilities themselves and groups like BOMA (Business Owners and Managers Association - who've made deregulation of utilities their primary lobby effort for 2001). One of Bush's biggest backers is a firm in Texas that buys and resells generating capacity. PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) was also a major supporter. Both have made major profits under deregulation. The utilities who backed de-regulation at the State level, tended to vigorously oppose it at the National level.

I read that aluminum factories in Washington State (who contract in advance for huge amounts of power at discounted prices), have stopped manufacturing aluminum and are reselling the power. and making more profit.

Another factor in the California debacle is that something like 25% of the overall generating capacity is off-line. In the days of regulation, such thing were monitored by the bloated, liberal eco-freak dominated bureaucracy that was eroding the profits of the utilities to make sure their weren't rolling blackouts. Saying that taking that much capacity off-line at the same time was done as a deliberate attempt to drive up prices would be unproven speculation.

Regards John

Guest, Stakly

I don't see any need for ad hommium attacks on MAV. His ideas speak volumes about who he is (or pretends to be?)

Regards John