This may be of some use, I am still looking


C. Discouraging New Power Supplies
California is not an easy state in which to build a power plant. Licensing 
procedures and rules are expensive and time consuming. Environmental 
regulations are among the most stringent in the nation, and power plants are 
unpopular neighbors, often sparking resistance from local residents. In 
California, plants often take three to five years from concept to operation, 
while in other Western states the process can be as short as one year.
The long delays in adding capacity in California had set the state on the 
road to shortages long before restructuring.
Thanks to these barriers, in 1996, as restructuring was debated, California 
had not seen a new power plant built in a decade. Yet the state still had 
excess energy generation capacity. Indeed, one reason for restructuring was 
to let market incentives determine capacity decisions. The architects of 
restructuring assumed that competition and profit opportunity would bring new 
power plants to keep electricity supply well ahead of demand in spite of the 
difficulties state regulations present. And, despite restructuring,s failure 
to allow a competitive market, restructuring did stimulate new capacity*
between March 1998 and the end of 2000 the California Energy Commission had 
licensed nine new power plants that will generate over 6,000 MW, about 16 
percent of the state,s average daily load.
But these new plants are so slow in coming*the first won,t be online until 
mid-2001*they won,t help solve the current shortage. The long delays in 
adding capacity in California had set the state on the road to shortages long 
before restructuring. Since 1988, the state energy commission has been 
predicting that demand would catch up with and surpass supply. But state 
leaders did nothing to change the barriers that discouraged new companies 
from building new power plants. At first, discussions of deregulation may 
have discouraged new investment, since private companies did not know what 
kind of law the state would pass. But restructuring ended that uncertainty 
and companies saw an opportunity to make money from growing demand in 
California. The new plants they are now building will likely assure that the 
current shortage will not persist.
The current policy debate over what to do about the shortage has focused on 
providing more power plants as soon as possible. Gov. Davis created a "green 
team" to streamline regulatory review of some projects, but the new process 
applies to only two of the 13 projects undergoing review. Davis has also 
proposed a state energy authority to build and operate new power plants, but 
state ownership and construction will only speed up projects if the state 
does not follow all permitting and environmental rules, the same result could 
be accomplished by waiving rules for private power generators and without 
consuming tax revenues to pay for the plants.
But waiving the rules is not likely to be politically acceptable and may not 
even be wise. A better approach would be to change the regulatory approach 
without changing standards. California regulators view their roles as 
ensuring that standards are not violated*they don,t care if the power plant 
gets built. Thus they make themselves like the troll under the bridge*no one 
gets by without meeting their terms. State leaders could speed up the process 
of adding new power plants by changing the regulator,s mission so his goal is 
to make sure that the power plant gets built without violating any standards*
a subtle but important change in approach.
Indeed, speeding up the review process by taking a constructive approach to 
solving problems as they arise, rather than just kicking the problem back to 
the developer, could improve the environmental quality of the state,s energy 
supply. New generation plants are cleaner and more efficient than older ones 
and will displace some of the dirtiest plants in a competitive market. With 
the right approach, state policy makers can meld the incentives to invest 
that supply constraints and market prices create with a more positive 
approach to permitting and environmental reviews to speed up completion of 
new plants, shortening the span of the state,s electricity shortage and 
helping prevent future shortages