California Energy Policy: Political Stalemate

Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee has California needs coherent energy policy but gets political games.

With California’s population growing by more than a half-million souls every year, an adequate and dependable supply of energy – electric power and natural gas, particularly – is vital to the state’s economic and social future, as Thursday’s rolling blackouts in sweltering Southern California graphically demonstrated.

But, who will be held accountable?

Who is to blame?

A Republican Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who suceeded a recalled Democrat Governor Gray Davis, partly because of his failed energy policy and Gray-outs or a Democrat controlled legislature who is not accountable to voters because of the Democrat gerrymand of 2002?

But if what happened in the Legislature on Thursday is any indication, we may be waiting a long time for them.

The Senate, voting largely along party lines, rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ambitious scheme to reorganize the state’s confusing welter of energy agencies into a single Department of Energy, with Democrats angrily denouncing it as “constitutionally flawed and illegal,” in the words of Sen. Martha Escutia, D-Whittier. Escutia and others said they agreed with streamlining but that the plan violates conflict-of-interest laws and illegally takes power away from the Public Utilities Commission. “I want to do it right and if it means I take my goddamn time, I will,” said Escutia, who chairs the Senate’s energy committee. Later, she apologized “for using the Lord’s name in vain,” but added, “it’s still BS.” Republicans argued that the legal flaws could be easily fixed by passing an accompanying bill. “It’s simply a matter of political will,” said Sen. Bill Morrow, R-Oceanside.

Cute!

Perhaps the voters of California will rise up to send a message in the November special election.

In the meanwhile, watch for more rolling blackouts and increasing energy costs.

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