Those in Cal-ee-forn-ee-a

[BSmack]

BTW: What ever happened to pops 1-72?

[Cross Traffic]

Cali prop #'s are on a 20 year cycle. This rotation started around 1998.

[Diogenes]

Of course the Electrical problems were caused by the Democratic Legislature preventing the building of power plants for 20+ years in a energy importing state.

Said Dems being kept in power by the Unions.

Yea, and it had nothing to do with the horrible deregulation scheme foisted on the state by politicans bought and paid for by energy interests.

:roll:

There was no deregulation, dumbass.

And the cause of the shortage was simple supply and demand, which sucks for you when your state legislature is owned by the Unions and the Sierra Club.

[smackaholic]

Gilroy is in the sticks and the entire city smells like garlic. It ain't exactly Beverly Hills North.

Maybe not. But I just did a search of real estste in Gilroy and the cheapest house on the market there is going for 325,000. The median appears to be in the 500k range or a bit higher. If he can afford to live in that pricey a neighborhood, he sure as hell ain't poor.

There are houses in cali that were worth less than 100K 7 years ago that are "worth" over 300 today. This guy might havge one of those.

[Mikey]

I also don't get why you're down on 76. That's probably the most important measure on the ballot. The fact that both the Republican AND Democrats currently in Sacramento are against it tells you all you need to know. It's people vs. politicians on that one. Us against them. 153 elections in the legislature and senate last year and ZERO seats changed party hands? The system is rigged, bigtime.

I think you're talking about 77 here, the redistricting measure. Like I said before, flawed but I'm for it.

[Diego in Seattle]

Of course the Electrical problems were caused by the Democratic Legislature preventing the building of power plants for 20+ years in a energy importing state.

Said Dems being kept in power by the Unions.

Yea, and it had nothing to do with the horrible deregulation scheme foisted on the state by politicans bought and paid for by energy interests.

:roll:

There was no deregulation, dumbass.

Yes there was, dumbass. It's sort of suprising you would forget that, considering who was behind it (think killer tomatoes).

[Diogenes]

Just because a Democrat called it 'deregulation' doesn't make it so, dipshit.




And I never voted for the nitwit to begin with.

[fix]

Arnold Campaign Pulls TV Ad on Initiatives By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 51 minutes ago



SACRAMENTO, Calif. -
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election campaign said it was withdrawing a television advertisement that featured the governor appealing to voters to support his slate of ballot initiatives.

The move Saturday to drop Schwarzenegger from the airwaves came at a critical time — just 17 days before the Nov. 8 election.

His campaign dismissed the notion that the ad — the only one featuring the governor — was pulled because of Schwarzenegger's falling approval ratings. Instead, they said TV ads are being rotated as part of a plan to educate voters about specific ballot measures.

Still, some observers said Schwarzenegger's ability to sell his ballot agenda might be limited because polls show he has the approval of only about 35 percent of voters.

"An overwhelming majority of voters think this special election is unnecessary and an overwhelming number of voters say they will not vote for Schwarzenegger again. Let's face it, he's unpopular," said Larry Gerston, a political scientist from San Jose State University.

Todd Harris, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team, said there is no effort to hide the governor and pointed to his Saturday campaign stops in Southern California and a live TV forum planned for Monday.

"We've reached a stage in this campaign where the most important thing we can do is focus on the initiatives themselves," he said.

Harris said the TV advertisement does not address details of the governor's measures, while three others do. He said Schwarzenegger will be back in TV ads before Election Day.

The 30-second ad featuring the governor had been running for about a month. In it, Schwarzenegger speaks directly to the camera about the influence big labor unions have on the state and the need to pass his reform package.

Schwarzenegger is pushing four initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot: Proposition 74 would extend the probationary period for teachers from two years to five. Proposition 75 would require public employee unions to secure written permission from members before dues could be used for political purposes. Proposition 76 calls for a state spending cap and Proposition 77 would strip lawmakers of the power to draw political boundaries.

35%?
Shit, there must be 90% of that 35% posting here.

[Diego in Seattle]

Just because a Democrat called it 'deregulation' doesn't make it so, dipshit.




And I never voted for the nitwit to begin with.

I never knew you lived in his district in the first place.

[Variable]

Arnold Campaign Pulls TV Ad on Initiatives By TOM CHORNEAU, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 51 minutes ago



SACRAMENTO, Calif. -
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special election campaign said it was withdrawing a television advertisement that featured the governor appealing to voters to support his slate of ballot initiatives.

The move Saturday to drop Schwarzenegger from the airwaves came at a critical time — just 17 days before the Nov. 8 election.

His campaign dismissed the notion that the ad — the only one featuring the governor — was pulled because of Schwarzenegger's falling approval ratings. Instead, they said TV ads are being rotated as part of a plan to educate voters about specific ballot measures.

Still, some observers said Schwarzenegger's ability to sell his ballot agenda might be limited because polls show he has the approval of only about 35 percent of voters.

"An overwhelming majority of voters think this special election is unnecessary and an overwhelming number of voters say they will not vote for Schwarzenegger again. Let's face it, he's unpopular," said Larry Gerston, a political scientist from San Jose State University.

Todd Harris, spokesman for Schwarzenegger's California Recovery Team, said there is no effort to hide the governor and pointed to his Saturday campaign stops in Southern California and a live TV forum planned for Monday.

"We've reached a stage in this campaign where the most important thing we can do is focus on the initiatives themselves," he said.

Harris said the TV advertisement does not address details of the governor's measures, while three others do. He said Schwarzenegger will be back in TV ads before Election Day.

The 30-second ad featuring the governor had been running for about a month. In it, Schwarzenegger speaks directly to the camera about the influence big labor unions have on the state and the need to pass his reform package.

Schwarzenegger is pushing four initiatives on the Nov. 8 ballot: Proposition 74 would extend the probationary period for teachers from two years to five. Proposition 75 would require public employee unions to secure written permission from members before dues could be used for political purposes. Proposition 76 calls for a state spending cap and Proposition 77 would strip lawmakers of the power to draw political boundaries.

35%?
Shit, there must be 90% of that 35% posting here.

His poll numbers are only that low because the Unions have been running attack ads non-stop on every channel for the past 9 months. Don't know many politicians who'd have positive poll #'s after that.

[DrDetroit]

Of course the Electrical problems were caused by the Democratic Legislature preventing the building of power plants for 20+ years in a energy importing state.

Said Dems being kept in power by the Unions.

Yea, and it had nothing to do with the horrible deregulation scheme foisted on the state by politicans bought and paid for by energy interests.

:roll:

You're right...it had nothing to do deregulation, dumbass because the market was never deregulated. How you can call a market where the government determines the time and price of a commodity to be deregulated quite rightly defies logic...much like the rest of your bullshit.

[BSmack]

You're right...it had nothing to do deregulation, dumbass because the market was never deregulated. How you can call a market where the government determines the time and price of a commodity to be deregulated quite rightly defies logic...much like the rest of your bullshit.

Does it hurt being so ignorant?

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The verdict is in: California's experiment with energy deregulation is not just a mess; it's a certifiable failure, according to everyone from the state's governor to the very utilities that initially backed the scheme.

[DrDetroit]

You're right...it had nothing to do deregulation, dumbass because the market was never deregulated. How you can call a market where the government determines the time and price of a commodity to be deregulated quite rightly defies logic...much like the rest of your bullshit.

Does it hurt being so ignorant?

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The verdict is in: California's experiment with energy deregulation is not just a mess; it's a certifiable failure, according to everyone from the state's governor to the very utilities that initially backed the scheme.

Gee, if the media calls it deregulation, well, it must be deregulation... :roll:

Please explain how a state regulating the purchase of energy is a deregulated industry....well???

Did you read your own article??

Big mistake No. 1: Under the 1996 deregulation measure, investor-owned utilities such as Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric were required to sell most of their power generating plants to other private companies, and to become buyers of wholesale electric power.

Big mistake No. 2: While deregulation mandated that utilities buy their power on the open market and pay market prices, it barred them from passing on increases to their customers until at least March 31, 2002.

The government coercing firms to sell their capital infrastructure and setting prices is deregulation??

[BSmack]

Gee, if the media calls it deregulation, well, it must be deregulation...

\

What is it about the word "process" that you don't understand?

[DrDetroit]

What about your article confirming what I posted don't you understand?

[BSmack]

What about your article confirming what I posted don't you understand?

Still confusing "deregulated" with "unregulated"?

[DrDetroit]

No, not at all. I'm confused how you can call an industry deregulated when the state controls capital ownership, commodity purchases, and prices? That's not "de"-regulated at all.

Dumbshit, this isn't at all similar to regulating patents or regulating labeling or regulating the airwaves.

What we have here is the state controlling ownership, controlling prices, etc.

Calling that deregulated is blasphemy.

[BSmack]

No, not at all. I'm confused how you can call an industry deregulated when the state controls capital ownership, commodity purchases, and prices? That's not "de"-regulated at all.

Think of it this way. When you deconstruct something, it does not mean you totaly destroy the object.

Pass the joint mon.

[DrDetroit]

Missed the concept of deregulation, eh?

[Diogenes]

Phony Deregulation

By Adrian T. Moore

Ralph Nader recently characterized San Diego as the "canary in the coal mine" of electricity deregulation, arguing that the state essentially sold out the public’s right to a reliable supply of electricity when it tried to open the door to competition. He misplaced the blame. San Diego’s skyrocketing electricity rates are the result of political horse-trading and compromise, not free markets.

The 1996 law at the center of the debate is not some radical rewriting of the rule books. California didn’t deregulate its electricity market; it "restructured " it. While the generation of electricity was partly deregulated, additional regulations and controls were placed on the rest of the system. The result violates most basic principles of deregulation: It discourages entry into the market, it restricts expansion of capacity, and it sustains the old systems and rules that prevent competition.

Witnessing the legislative battles and compromises, most potential competitors outside California adopted a wait-and-see approach. The most recent attempts to freeze electricity rates at pre-restructuring levels have only confirmed their worst fears–it isn’t a deregulated market at all, just some hybrid that no one knows how to navigate.

Under real deregulation, higher prices would spur more competition. But under California’s system, political hurdles ensure that no out-of-state relief can be expected anytime soon.

So what about new power supplies in-state? Many pundits complain that no new capacity has come online since restructuring, but they don’t bother to ask why. First, the restructuring law forced California’s utilities to get out of power generation and sell their power plants–so they aren’t investing in new ones. Several groups have applied to build new generation plants, some of them immediately after the law was passed. But even after four years, those new plants aren’t likely to come online until next year because of the glacier-slow approval process.

As important, restructuring left California’s existing power supply dangerously exposed by lengthening the regulatory process for repairs and upkeep. The last thing you want during a power shortage is to have existing plants break down. But because of a deal brokered in restructuring, power companies must now get regulatory approval before doing major repairs or refits. The result: While San Diego County suffers blackouts, the power supply problem gets worse.

Worst of all, because electricity rates were not uniformly deregulated–only San Diego is experiencing "unregulated rates"–folks upstate have no incentive to conserve power. Supply is further diminished, and prices are pushed higher.

Given that the normal benefits of deregulation–competition and price-sensitive demand–were compromised out of the restructuring legislation, what do lawmakers want to do now? They want to reimpose price controls. While this may offer San Diegans short-term relief, it will have no effect on the long-term health of the power supply. In fact, combining artificially low prices with severe bureaucratic barriers to new supply is a recipe for major power shortages.

Contrast this with true deregulation in other industries, such as trucking and long-distance phone service. In those cases, prices were deregulated uniformly across the market; barriers to entry were removed, not added; and firms were encouraged to add capacity and were allowed to grow, shrink, or revamp themselves to respond to changes in demand. The result has been huge decreases in prices and increases in service quality and choice–the very things those who labeled California’s electric restructuring "deregulation" promised.

[Diogenes]

Power Struggle

By Jacob Sullum

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls it "a warning about the dangers of placing blind faith in markets." Los Angeles Times commentator Robert Scheer says it's yet another sign that "capitalism is falling apart." They're talking about the electricity situation in California, where demand has been rising faster than generating capacity, leading to sharp increases in wholesale prices. The state's two biggest utilities, Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, are begging for permission to pass these costs on to consumers, warning that otherwise they will go bankrupt.

To judge by most of the press coverage and punditry, the problem is that California recklessly "deregulated" its electricity market a few years ago, allowing prices to spin out of control. "Californians are left to the vagaries of just rampant laissez-faire capitalism," one activist recently told The Sacramento Bee.

But the fact that utilities still need government approval to raise prices suggests that "laissez faire" may not be the most accurate description of California's policy. The state legislature's unanimous approval of the 1996 law that set up the current system is further cause for suspicion: It's not the sort of vote you'd expect if the bill threatened entrenched interests by creating a genuinely free market.

"The state did not deregulate the electricity market," observes Adrian Moore, executive director of the Reason Public Policy Institute. "They 'restructured' it, requiring far more state intervention in electricity transactions than existed before."

The law set up what Moore calls "a micromanaged pseudo-market," requiring the utilities to sell off their generating plants and buy their electricity from a state-administered exchange. Instead of putting together the megawatts they needed at various prices offered by different power suppliers, utilities had to pay each supplier the price demanded by the highest bidder.

The idea was to establish a clear "market price" through a "transparent" process that bears a strong resemblance to central planning. As wholesale prices rose in response to the shortage that began last summer, skyrocketing from about $30 per megawatt hour to as much as $1,500, the pricing policy compounded the utilities' financial difficulties. So did rules that discouraged them from using long-term contracts as a hedge against rising costs.

The surge in prices was caused by a variety of factors, including unanticipated increases in demand associated with recent economic growth. State regulations have contributed to the problem by encouraging overreliance on increasingly expensive natural gas and making it difficult to build new power plants, which take years to go online.

Uncertainty about how California will respond to the shortage is also discouraging generators from investing in new capacity. Critics have suggested everything from price caps to expropriation of power plants.

For their part, the utilities are largely to blame for the bind they're in. They actually lobbied for the statutory provision that is keeping them from raising their prices.

At the time, the utilities thought 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour was generous--enough to recoup the cost of their bad investments. But now that they're buying electricity at something like $1 per kilowatt hour, the rate freeze does not seem like such a good idea.

Leaving aside the interests of the utilities and their shareholders, it's crazy to deregulate wholesale prices while keeping retail prices under tight control. Without the signal of higher bills, households and businesses have little reason to cut back on their electricity use, which exacerbates the mismatch between supply and demand, raising wholesale prices further.

Since the willingness to pay higher prices is a measure of how important a particular energy use is, a rate freeze encourages waste. It prevents the market from allocating electricity to those who value it most: the people running an intensive care unit, say, as opposed to the guy with the blinding Christmas display.

Critics of California's current system are big on conservation, but they think of it as something you cajole with propaganda and encourage with subsidies, rather than the natural response to rising prices. "We ought to do it in a completely comprehensive way," V. John White, executive director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, told the Bee, practically salivating at the possibilities for new government programs. "The state's leadership on efficiency and demand is the first step."

Quite right. With a Department of Shut Off Those Lights and Close the Refrigerator, who needs a market?

[Diogenes]

One more for the idiots who think electricity was deregulated....


California Scheming
Don't blame deregulation for the Golden State's electricity snafus

By Michael W. Lynch

I spent Christmas with my parents in North San Diego County, the epicenter of the nation's most recent energy crisis. As is widely known, a few years back, California "deregulated" its electric utilities in an attempt to bring market competition (and resulting increases in efficiency) into play. But the unexpected has happened this year: In the wake of "deregulation" (I'll explain those ironic quote marks a bit further down), electricity prices have gone through the roof in the San Diego area. Similar rate spikes -- and serious shortages -- loom as real possibilities throughout the Golden State.

Arriving from the frigid East (I split my time between Washington, D.C. and New Haven, Connecticut), I first wondered why people even need electricity in San Diego, where one can manage an early morning run even in the dead of winter wearing only shorts and a T-Shirt. It wasn’t until I hit the links that I figured why the area requires power: Golf carts run on electric motors. Grounding golf carts would destroy a way of life, a true tragedy.

Could I have finally found a free market injustice, an instance where markets actually failed to deliver the goods (and services)? My copy of Human Action says such a thing is impossible, but the Invisible Hand seemed to be slapping around the good people of San Diego, where electric bills have been skyrocketing like the NASDAQ used to. I set out to get to the bottom of this.

I called Adrian Moore, Ph.D., the executive director of the Reason Public Policy Institute, a research organization funded by Reason Foundation, the parent of Reason Magazine and Reason Online (though we share a common parent, the magazine and the think tank, like many siblings, operate fully independently from one another). Adrian is a dismal scientist, an economist, so I knew he would be able to crack this energy nut for me. Not only does he love energy policy, but he lives in Southern California.

My questions were simple: How did it come to pass that California is in danger of North Korean-style blackouts? Is it true, as leftists like the Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer claim, that the impending golf-cart stoppage is a product of the free market, the very same free market that provides in abundant supply such good things as Toyota Camrys, South Park, and $20 Texas-style couch dances? Could the catastrophe be the product of actual deregulation, that same glorious process that gave us Southwest Airlines and Mom-and-Pop long-haul trucking?

Adrian's answer: My parents’ newly outrageous power bill, which is fast approaching my wife’s cell phone bill, is not the fault of the market. In fact, says Moore, it’s not even the product of deregulation, which never actually happened in California. Despite numerous claims to the contrary, the California electricity market wasn’t deregulated. It was "restructured" by state politicians, explains Moore. To be sure, power is now bought and sold in the Golden State like other commodities. But that fact doesn't mean there's anything like a free market in energy.

Here's how the current crisis was created. A half-decade ago, energy deregulation became big buzz in Sacramento's political circles. In 1996, Assemblyman Steve Peace, considered by some to be the Sen. Pat Moynihan of the California legislature, decided to get in front of this parade. He organized the relevant players —big industrial customers, utilities, environmental groups, and consumer groups—and the result was an electricity restructuring bill that passed the legislature unanimously. Whenever that happens, you can safely bet something screwy is going on.

Politicians claimed the plan would provide consumers with more choice and lower prices. Big business figured its purchasing power would allow it to secure lower prices, of the sort the feds deliver up in the Pacific Northwest with the heavily subsidized Bonneville Power Administration. Consumer and environmental groups got lots of restrictions on how the utilities could operate, including price controls, which, as Cuba shows, do a great job of protecting consumers from such things as consumer goods, including necessities such as food, clothing, and, well, electricity. They also got a guaranteed 10 percent rate cut right off the bat.

California has both public utilities and investor-owned ones. The investor-owned utilities had to sell off their power plants, since vertical integration is considered almost as sinful as giving out free Web browsers. Still, they too got what they thought was a good deal: They got to charge their customers a "competitive transition charge," which almost offset the 10 percent rate cut and allowed them to recoup their "stranded costs," a euphemism for stupid investments in inefficient plants. They also got a cartel scheme worthy of trial lawyers and Big Tobacco: New competitors had to charge customers the same "competitive transition fee" and hand the money over to the state. Between the price controls and the rate cut, any new competitor entering the California market would have to price their juice so cheaply that it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Seeking a tightly managed market, the pols behind the restructuring made another costly error, the result being a totally mangled market. They mistook a physical marketplace (e.g., the New York Stock Exchange) for the market itself. But the latter is simply individuals or firms agreeing to voluntary transactions wherever they may be, a sort of floating crap game that takes place all the time, everywhere and nowhere. The pols not only created an actual, centralized marketplace called the Power Exchange in a building in Pasadena, they also mandated that all electricity must be bought and sold there. Concerned that all transactions be revealed to the public, they further prohibited buyers and sellers from agreeing to individual contracts and mandated that everyone pay the same -- and highest -- price offered on any given day. So that's how the "market" price for power would be set for the utilities. Here's another catch: Regulators would set the price the utilities could charge energy consumers.

Now this scheme may be many things, but a deregulated market it certainly isn’t. But none of this mattered much as long as electricity was plentiful and wholesale prices remained sufficiently under the politician's price caps, a situation which existed until 2000.

Times have been good in California over the past few years; industry has been working at capacity; more people have moved into the state; folks have been buying and air-conditioning larger homes; golf carts have been filling up the state’s fairways. Everything, in short, has been expanding in California since the "deregulation."

Except power plants. It’s extremely difficult to get a permit and a site for a power plant in California. Residents love electricity, but they also love such things as clean air, pristine beaches, unobstructed views, and critters such as the Kangaroo Rat. Since the early 1990s, not a single plant has been built in California. From 1996 to 1999, electricity demand grew by 12 percent while supply grew by less than 2 percent, according to the California Utilities Commission.

Under the restructuring plan, this capacity crunch is debilitating. The wholesale prices paid by utilities increased until they were as much as 100 times greater than the retail price utilities are allowed to charge consumers. In most of the state, utilities are racking up huge losses. Why have prices jumped so high in the San Diego area? Because the biggest local provider there, San Diego Gas and Electric, has managed to pay off its stranded costs. Under the restructuring arrangement, that means SDG&E is actually allowed to increase its prices to match its costs. It did and people started screaming. Virtually all of the rest of the state, however, is still under price controls, so people don’t feel any pressure to conserve.

"The immediate response of every politician in the state," says RPPI's Moore, "is, ‘Look at what unfettered free markets have done.’" (If they wanted to look at an actually deregulated electricity market, they should look to Pennsylvania, where consumers, producers, and politicians are all pleased.) California Governor Gray Davis, who blames deregulation, out-of state power producers, and federal regulators, has called for stringent price controls, which will solve the problem by turning off the lights (other things being equal, price controls create demand while undercutting supply). Consumer activist Harvey Rosenfield and state Treasurer Phil Angelides offer plans straight out of the dustbin of history: They want to create a state-run, statewide utility -- since nothing the state provides, like highways, is ever in short supply.

Leftists such as Scheer point out that the public utilities in California—Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Pasadena provide examples—charge customers less for electricity. He's right, but they are only able to do so because they don’t pay any taxes, get federal subsidies in the form of tax-exempt debt, and are eligible for sweetheart power deals on cheap federal hydropower from the Northwest (whose full cost is foisted onto taxpayers in other parts of the country). Scheer and others decry private-sector profiteering, as if the public utilities are not among those taking home profits. For instance, Los Angeles’ municipal utility has so far raked in nearly $200 million by reselling the power they buy from the feds on the cheap. The Bonneville Power Administration, the leading killer of salmon outside of California’s sushi industry, earned $208 million last year selling power to Californians, a 500 percent increase over the previous year.

So the California electricity mess is really a reflection of trying to rig markets, not deregulate them. What’s the way out of this mess? All policy pieces are supposed to supply an easy answer, but I’m afraid there’s no painless one available. A socialized power scheme would merely replace private managers with bureaucrats and, in one form or another, pass the cost along to taxpayers, who are also rate payers. At least one new power plant is expected to come online this summer, which, along with the coming recession, may help things a bit by changing the supply-demand equation. Many other plants are somewhere in the tortuous design-approval-construction process and will doubtless get a boost from the current turmoil. California could also beg for some sort of federal bailout, but Washington, D.C. is now dominated by Republicans, who are unlikely to be overly charitable to a bunch of West Coast Democrats.

Not that the feds aren’t already playing a role. Moore points to an unlikely hero in this fiasco, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Not only did the federal bureaucrats rebuff Davis’ pleadings for more regulation, they actually ordered something like the start of a true deregulation of California’s market, freeing up the Power Exchange’s prices and allowing utilities and electricity producers to enter into bilateral contracts. A Bush Department of Energy could further help Californians by ordering the federally subsidized power producers, like the Bonneville Power Administration, to sell their cheap power to all utilities, not just the ones owned by governments.

Politically, leftists like Scheer are using the issue to smear deregulation and free markets, which have, after all, produced all sorts of awful things like life-saving pharmaceuticals, $300 coast-to-coast airplane flights, and long-distance phone calls for $.07 a minute. In Pennsylvania, this horrible market even gives folks relatively cheap power. Still, many politicians, who fear problems more than they long for innovation, are sure to blame the "market" and oppose actual deregulation.

There is a possible political benefit, however. People like my folks down in San Diego know in their bones that the politicians screwed them, no matter what folks like Scheer write. And even granola-obsessed residents of California are likely to recognize that inexpensive electricity has to be produced someplace. And since, as one writer has noted, transporting electricity is like carrying sand in a burlap bag, some of those power plants need to be located in their precious state, if not in their very own backyards.

So unless Californians want to pay and pay and pay -- whether through their rigged "free market" or through higher taxes for publicly owned utilities -- they ought to be more critical of the claims and motives of environmental and consumer groups who work to block the construction of new power plants. Such a dose of reality for Golden State residents won't be all bad. Indeed, it might even keep those golf carts humming.