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   Vol.65/No.5            February 5, 2001 
 
 
Bosses' 'solution' to power crisis: rate hikes
(front page)
 
BY BERNIE SENTER  
SAN FRANCISCO--Anger and disgust is growing among workers and farmers in California as rolling blackouts, sharply increased utility bills, and government bailout of the bankrupt utility companies have become answers from corporations and capitalist politicians to an energy crisis spiraling out of control.

California Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein, who closely collaborates with Gov. Gray Davis on the crisis, told the press more rate increases and some form of bailout of the companies must be carried out. "That's the fact, and you have to prepare people for the facts," she said. "There is no politically painless solution. The more you get into this the more clearly you see it."

President George Bush proposed relaxing environmental rules that he claims keep the state's power plants from running full tilt. He dismissed the idea of imposing price caps on energy rates, instead telling CNN, "If there's any environmental regulations that's preventing California from having a 100 percent max output at their plants--as I understand there may be--then we need to relax those regulations."

Enrique Alemán, in a line with 200 other workers applying for union construction electrician apprenticeships January 20, said he thought the "corporations predominate over the people. We consumers don't get the break in electrical rates that big corporations get. We get hurt the most. There is no crisis of energy. The cause is that corrupt corporations want more money out of the lowest income class."

Michael Pulsoni had a different take on the crisis, saying it was the "hallmark of incompetence. No attempt to increase resources. Part of the problem is environmental restrictions."

Fifteen minutes after talking with Alemán and Pulsoni, the lights went out.

The energy crisis is having an impact on dairy farmers who were already facing dropping milk prices and increasing costs. The Modesto Bee reported that dairy farmers have had to dump fresh milk in wastewater ponds since mid-December. When creameries and other businesses that process milk are slowed or closed due to power outages, trucks carrying milk from the farmers get backed up, forcing farmers to dispose of the highly perishable product. The Land O' Lakes processing plant in Tulare has dumped 450,000 pounds so far.

Developments over the past week highlight the depth of the crisis.

Nearly half of PG&E's debt is owed to itself because the parent company sold energy at a substantial profit to it's own subsidiary. With the looming bankruptcy of the utility portion of PG&E's operations, they convinced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on December 28 to approve a stock transfer plan that shields the assets of the parent company from it's insolvent utility subsidiary.

Bernie Senter is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 120.
 
 
Related articles:
Workers in Alabama protest rate hike, shutoff of gas heat
Big-business forces press for nuclear power  
 
 
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