Apr/May 2001
Energy
Crisis or greed crisis?
Jackie alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
US
Science And Technology Policy
A New Century, A New Framework
Jill Chopyak
An
Ounce Of Precaution: The "Precautionary Principle" Versus "Risk
Management"
Donella
Meadows
The
Pain of the World Passes Through Us
Gaea Yudron, MRET
Plastic
Softeners in Food & Water Linked to Reproductive Disorders
Rachel’s Bi-weekly
Political money: Like A Big Water Balloon by John Darling
Congress:
The Real Pros At Quid Pro Quo
Arianna Huffington
Citizen
Protests Continue: Worldwide Opposition
Kayla M. Starr
Fiddling
While Rome Burns
Blair Bobier
These
Mountains & Rivers as Home:
The Work of the Siskiyou Field Institute
Let
the Children Move
Jon Bredal, MA
Breastfeeding:
A Simple Choice
Pamela Jorrick
Monthly Prayer by Peter Moore
The
Future of Energy Medicine
Richard Gordon
Shock:
How It Limits Our Lives, What We Can Do About It
Peggy Rubin
Cosmic Calendar by Salina Rain
According to a recent issue of the Sunday Parade magazine, "If our cars could squeeze just one more mile from each gallon they consumed, America would save 6 billion gallons a year." The result? In 16 years we’d save the equivalent of all the oil geologists think could be extracted from Alaska’s Arctic Wildlife Refuge. Some estimates say it will take ten years just to get that oil out of the ground and into the pipeline, and there is also potential for negative environmental impact, isn’t conservation the obvious best choice? With cars like the Honda Insight, which gets 68 mpg/city and 61 mpg/city, now available, it isn’t something we need to wait to do. Of course, the oil industry’s profits will suffer, but the climate and the world’s population will benefit.
And speaking of profits, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, Enron Corporation— whose operations are designed to take full advantage of unregulated energy trade— earned $1.3 billion last year, a 32% increase over 1999. Does the fact that Enron is one of the main players in California’s energy crisis and also one of George W. Bush’s largest contributors come as any surprise?
Continuing recent announcements from the Bush administration— including their claim that carbon dioxide levels do not need to be limited, caps on energy prices will be detrimental to consumers (!?), and the U.S. will no longer be apart of the Kyoto agreement on climate change—will hopefully help more people understand that corporate interests are behind these decisions, and must be reined in.
This recent column by Jackie Giuliano helps shed some light onto the California energy crisis, and will hopefully also motivate people to make their voices heard. How much longer can we continue to poison the planet with fossil fuel emissions, and how many of us can afford 40-50% rate hikes for electricity? It is up to us to decide. (Editor)
Energy
Crisis or Greed Crisis?
Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
A crisis is usually brought on by some acute episode that triggers a series of events. There are usually symptoms that precede a crisis, although in both the environment and medicine, there can be acute events that seem to come out of nowhere. What some are calling the current energy crisis certainly did seem to come out of nowhere and many people are asking whether or not this crisis is or a result of industry and governmental choices designed to raise prices and remove environmental controls. Whatever it is, it has already succeeded in bringing on both those aims.
Speculation that there really was not crisis has grown to levels that now cannot be denied and on January 30, 2001, Washington State Attorney General Christine Gregoire announced that her office would begin an investigation to determine if price manipulation and other unfair business practices were driving West Coast energy prices. Recent reports compiled by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission show that quarterly profits increased 20 times since the same time last year.
The seeds for this manufactured crisis were sown in 1992 when Congress lifted regulations on the wholesale power market. Twenty-three states followed with their own deregulation legislation. California's "crisis" is no mystery to those who have followed the events since the state deregulated energy production in 1996 when then California Governor Pete Wilson signed Assembly bill AB1890 into law. Many environmental and labor groups alike condemned this legislation.
The legislation was cleverly marketed by utility lobbies attempting to convince consumers that they could now have their choice in electricity. In fact, the California legislation allocated a staggering $89 million for electric industry advertising. Consumers were told that if they wanted to have their households supplied by green power producers, they could make that choice. But industry analysts warned that this was never the real motivation of this law. This legislation was never about the success of small, green power companies. It has always been about opening the door to massive mergers by utility giants who would corner the market in energy.
Shortly after the passage of the California bill, the Nation magazine reported that the "American Electric Power and the Central and Southwest Corporation announced plans for a $12 billion merger that would create an eleven-state behemoth serving 4.6 million customers. California's Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison, Ohio's Centerior, Illinois's Com Ed and dozens of other mega-utilities have morphed into even larger companies in the past year, raising the specter of an industry run by a small cartel of unregulated monoliths."
Recent history of California energy use does make one wonder if this crisis is real or manufactured. In the summer of 2000, California had a 47,000-megawatt power load, which wasn't even a peak load for them. Yet the lights stayed on and there were no blackouts in sight. Dozens of lawmakers, utility officials, and many others are starting to speculate that power generation owners may have purposefully withheld power during peak times, artificially driving up prices and making those who owned stock in fossil fuel powered plants very rich. The "disappearance" of 17,000-megawatts is now the subject of investigations by federal and state agencies, academic studies, and the Washington and Oregon state attorneys general.
States are also quietly allowing utility companies across the nation to include surcharges on utility bills that are designed to help the mega-companies pay off bad investments in failed nuclear power plants. These cleverly disguised fees will pay off the $135 billion of these bad investments with consumer’s hard earned dollars. In California and Massachusetts, this corporate welfare may constitute as much as 40 percent of consumers' electric bills.
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