Profiting From the Darkness; California's problems have created a lucrative 
opportunity for energy companies. Unfair? Maybe. But don't expect mercy from 
markets.
Newsweek, 05/14/01

Big Energy at the Table; Winning support for your agenda is easy when your 
allies fill out the administration's top chairs
Newsweek, 05/14/01

UK: EMETRA plans weekly website metal auctions.
Reuters English News Service, 05/09/01

Talking Stocks
CNNfn: The Money Gang, 05/09/01

Business Leader Joins Elite List; Peter Holt to be Honored at Dinner of 
Champions
Business Wire, 05/09/01

INDIA: CMS evaluating options on India LNG project.
Reuters English News Service, 05/09/01

The Latest California Power Craze: A Windfall Profits Tax Bill
TheStreet.com, 05/09/01


National Affairs
Profiting From the Darkness; California's problems have created a lucrative 
opportunity for energy companies. Unfair? Maybe. But don't expect mercy from 
markets.
By Allan Sloan With Kevin Peraino. SLOAN is NEWSWEEK's Wall Street editor. 
His e-mail address is sloan@panix.com.

05/14/2001
Newsweek
23
Copyright (C) 2001 Newsweek Inc. All Rights Reserved.

When it comes to football, "piling on" a player who's already been tackled is 
a major penalty that can set your team back a long way. But when it comes to 
markets, piling on by taking advantage of the weak is called "opportunism," 
and it can get you a big bonus. 
Which brings us to California, where piling on enfeebled utilities and 
customers by power generators and power traders has become a way of life. 
Thanks to the idiotic way that California deregulated its electricity 
markets, the generators and traders of power in California have been making a 
fortune because electricity costs have gone through the roof. Meanwhile, 
consumers are getting pounded rather than protected, economic instability is 
spreading throughout the Western United States and some of the utilities that 
distribute power to customers are getting clobbered. One big utility, Pacific 
Gas & Electric, has already gone broke and others may soon follow.
But while the market has produced a horde of losers--California's wholesale 
power bill is running at 10 times the level of two years ago--there is a 
handful of big winners: companies that generate or trade power in the 
California market. Among the winners: Calpine, whose first-quarter profit 
quintupled, compared with last year's; Reliant Energy and Williams Cos., 
whose profits more than doubled; Mirant, up 84 percent, and Dynegy and Duke 
Energy, whose wholesale power profits doubled and quadrupled, respectively. 
Enron, the nation's biggest energy trader, had a 75 percent increase in 
wholesale-services profits, but says little of that was from California. Some 
of these companies' profits would have risen far more--Mirant's would have 
quadrupled--had they not taken big earnings hits to cover the risk of not 
being paid for some of their California sales. If they finally get paid, 
their profits will be outtasight. You can see why some of these companies' 
stocks have heated up as California melted down. 
To be fair, you can't attribute these entire increases to California--but you 
can be sure California accounts for a good portion of them. There are other, 
less obvious winners, too. Among them: the unregulated subsidiaries of some 
companies that own California utilities; aluminum producers that are making 
more money by closing their plants and selling their power allotments than 
they would have made by producing aluminum; farms that find it more 
profitable to resell electricity than to grow crops; and, in general, anyone 
in the Western United States or Canada with an electron to spare and some way 
of getting it into California. 
I'm not saying that these companies are immoral for making a fortune by 
taking advantage of California's problems. Breaking the law by creating an 
artificial shortage--which has been alleged, but not remotely proven--would 
be immoral. Taking advantage of a situation? That's what's known as 
amoral--having no moral values, either good or bad. It's not nice, but it's 
perfectly legal, and it's the way market players are expected to act. 
So when California Gov. Gray Davis said last week that he was planning to 
have a "heart to heart" talk with California power generators, you just had 
to laugh. Because when it comes to business, those people have no hearts. 
They're not supposed to. 
What created the problem in California is not only deregulation, but a stupid 
deregulation plan carried out ineptly: the Kilowatt Keystone Cops, as it 
were. California put a cap on the rates that utilities could charge 
customers, but until recently, it forced utilities to buy all of their power 
in the short-term market. The utilities foolishly agreed to this deal. The 
problem: short-term markets are notoriously volatile. And notoriously 
ruthless. If there's a small surplus of power, you have desperate sellers 
trying to sell power, which can't be stored. But if there's a shortage, 
everyone piles on. Had California utilities been allowed to do the rational 
thing and buy most of their power in long-term markets, they would have paid 
more initially, but they and their customers would be in far better shape 
now. Compounding the problem is that while the state deregulated the 
wholesale rates the utilities paid for power, they capped the retail rates 
utilities could charge. Combine that with total reliance on the short-term 
market and--voila! --you're totally at the market's mercy. And markets have 
no mercy. 
In the old days, when utilities were regulated, there was often waste and 
inefficiency, but power was reliable and utilities cared desperately about 
keeping the lights on. Now, we have markets that don't care about anything. 
Someday, markets may give us total reliability at a cheaper price than 
regulation would. But in the meantime, get used to the piling-on concept. 
Just hope you end up on top of the pile. 
Photo: Electrifying returns: What the market will bear 

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


National Affairs
Big Energy at the Table; Winning support for your agenda is easy when your 
allies fill out the administration's top chairs
By Howard Fineman and Michael Isikoff With Mark Hosenball, T. Trent Gegax and 
Rich Thomas in Washington

05/14/2001
Newsweek
18
Copyright (C) 2001 Newsweek Inc. All Rights Reserved.

If you were in the oil and gas business, it was a meeting that dreams were 
made of. Nine days before George W. Bush was inaugurated, energy lobbyists 
gathered at the American Petroleum Institute's offices in downtown 
Washington. Their agenda: to write a wish list. One participant remembers it 
fondly. "The tone was, 'OK, what do you guys want? You are going to have the 
ear of this White House'." In came an easel and a whiteboard, and ideas 
flowed: looser rules for drilling on federal lands; more drilling for oil and 
gas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico; lower royalty payments for tapping 
offshore wells. After a while, the mood in the room grew giddy. The man from 
the wildcatters' association suggested going All the Way. It was time, he 
said, to rethink the Endangered Species Act. 
That was a wish too far. But many items on that board--and other lists 
scribbled by other energy lobbyists in other offices around town--found their 
way into the recommendations that the president will unveil to the nation 
next week. The API list, in fact, was forwarded to George Bush's transition 
team, which sent it to the Interior Department. On March 20, Interior sent 
many of the same ideas to the Energy Task Force that Vice President Dick 
Cheney had convened on Jan. 29. To close the loop, key leaders from that API 
meeting have since been appointed to pivotal positions in Bush's 
administration--among them J. Steven Griles, an energy lobbyist and the new 
second in command at Interior, and Thomas Sansonetti, an energy lawyer 
recently named the top environmental cop at the Justice Department. The two, 
in effect, will help administer policies they helped to write.
If the Bush administration is homecoming weekend for the energy industry, 
Dick Cheney's task-force report is the pregame tailgate party. Not since the 
rise of the railroads more than a century ago has a single industry placed so 
many foot soldiers at the top of a new administration. While the report will 
recommend an array of what one White House aide advertises as "high-tech, 
21st-century conservation ideas," its core will be a call to find and use new 
sources of fossil fuels, as well as a renewed commitment to nuclear power. 
What voters need to hear "loud and clear," the president declared last week, 
"is that we are running out of energy in America." 
Is there a national "crisis"? California faces rolling summer-electricity 
blackouts. In New York City, officials are scrambling to add small gas-fired 
generators to handle peak demand. Natural-gas prices have doubled in the past 
year. The numbers on signs at filling stations are skyrocketing, and could 
hit $3 a gallon this summer in the Midwest. In a West Wing interview with 
NEWSWEEK, Cheney shied away from the C word. "I think the potential is there 
for it to adversely affect the economy," he said. 
But voters are using the word. In a NEWSWEEK Poll, 71 percent of those 
surveyed say there is an "energy crisis" in California; 53 percent agree 
there now is one in the country as a whole. Given an either-or choice between 
"protecting the environment" and "developing new sources of energy," those 
polled selected energy by 52 to 41 percent, compared with a 49-44 ratio just 
one month ago. 
There's something to be said for turning to energy-industry alums in this 
situation--and Cheney, who like Bush is a son of the oilfields, is not shy 
about saying it. "The fact of the matter is [you get] a lot of expertise with 
people who have been dealing with these issues for a long time," he told 
NEWSWEEK. In his own case, he said, his time at Halliburton, the 
globe-girdling oil-services company, taught him "a hell of a lot about the 
technology of the business," such as benign new ways to drill in Alaska's 
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 
But Americans are skeptical of industry motives--and, by extension, of Bush's 
ties. When asked to name who had contributed "a lot" to the current energy 
situation, those polled named two sets of villains: the U.S. energy companies 
(66 percent) and overseas energy suppliers, such as OPEC. Bush himself gets 
his lowest approval marks for his handling of energy and environmental 
issues. Democrats, naturally, are pouncing on what they see as a populist 
hole in Bush's armor. Late last week House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt was 
stumping in Chula Vista, Calif.; with transmission lines as a backdrop, he 
vowed to impose new federal caps on electricity rates--an idea Cheney flatly 
opposes. 
The administration may well have raised the political risk via the process it 
used to draft its plan. The Bushies used a secretive, believers-only process 
reminiscent of another such enterprise: Hillary Rodham Clinton's effort to 
write a national health-care plan in 1994. Since the group comprises only 
government officials, White House aides say, it is entitled to keep its 
deliberations private. Still, industry leaders--who dumped $22.5 million into 
GOP coffers in the last election--enjoyed constant contact with the task 
force. Cheney met with a group of utility executives at the Edison Electric 
Institute, whose president, Tom Kuhn, was a leading Bush fund-raiser. No one 
has enjoyed better access than Enron CEO Ken Lay, who recently had dinner 
with his good friend the president. 
The environmental community, meanwhile, got one mass meeting with the staff a 
month ago (and the promise of another this week with EPA Administrator 
Christine Todd Whitman). Efforts to meet with Cheney were rebuffed. Cheney 
himself confirmed he had not met with a single spokesman for the greens. That 
dynamic has only fueled suspicions among enviros about what's going on behind 
closed doors. "They're drumming up a fake energy crisis that doesn't exist," 
says Phil Clapp of the National Environmental Trust. 
To be sure, the Cheney report will make many nods in the direction of 
conservation and renewable resources. Cheney confirmed that it will call for 
tax credits for both. The plan will herald and encourage the advent of less 
intrusive, high-tech means for finding and extracting oil and gas and for 
burning more coal. White House spinners have decided to divide the report 
into five parts--only two of which will deal with the extraction and the 
transmission of new sources of traditional types of fuel. The conservation 
measures will be high tech and optimistically can-do about using Yankee 
ingenuity to give Americans all the cars and appliances they want while using 
less electricity from state-of-the-art power plants. But there will be no 
paeans to the kind of pantywaist, tree-hugging self-abnegation the Bushies 
think President Carter sermon- ized about a generation ago. "This isn't about 
not bathing or turning off your lights," said a top Cheney aide. "This is 
about finding environmentally safe ways to make sure we have the energy we 
need." 
That's not enough, environmentalists say, given the rising threat of global 
warming the green community is convinced comes from burning fossil fuels. 
"The test of any energy plan will be what it does to limit greenhouse gases," 
says Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense. The Union of Concerned Scientists, 
concerned about global warming, says that renewables and conservation could 
displace 20 percent of traditional electricity demand by the year 2020--and 
greatly lessen the need for new power plants. Cheney thinks otherwise. In 
that span, he said, reliance on renewables could indeed triple--a "fairly 
optimistic" scenario but one that would still meet only 6 percent of total 
electricity needs. But that estimate does not include imposing tough new 
mileage standards on SUVs or mandating more efficient appliances. "Part of 
our task," he said, "is to focus on reality, and reality is not 'Well, gee, 
we'll conserve our way out, we don't have to produce any more,' or 'Wind and 
solar will take care of it, so we don't need fossilfuels anymore'." 
Now comes the hard part: selling the plan to the public and to Congress. Some 
GOP strategists are sanguine about overcoming environmental concerns. 
"Nothing like $3-a-gallon gasoline to help make the case," said one. But it's 
probably not that simple. White House strategists are looking for clues on 
how best to hawk the package in polls done for them by the Republican 
National Committee. The surveys show that voters know very little about where 
energy supplies come from or how they now are distributed in what has become 
a relatively deregulated marketplace. "Voters out there think that the 
government guarantees cheap, abundant energy," said one worried Republican 
polltaker, "and that's not the way it works anymore." Other insiders worry 
less about the Democrats than the news media, which they regard as addicted 
to showing videotape of belching smokestacks. "Bush will have the bully 
pulpit," says GOP consultant Alex Castellanos, "but it's not an easy sell." 
But sell Bush must. He'll take his show on the road next week, joined by a 
fleet of cabinet secretaries. They will declare that action is needed after 
years of Clinton-administration neglect. They will say that there are no 
quick fixes, and tout their market-based, supply-side, long-term answers. 
They may use real-world vignettes about energy shortages. (On request, the 
Natural Gas Supply Association provided the White House some.) But politics 
is lived in the short term, and Bush late last week suddenly found himself in 
the role of conservation advocate. He ordered federal facilities in 
California to turn up thermostats, and pledged that they would reduce 
electricity use by 10 percent. Cheney, the interview over, hurried to the 
Cabinet Room for the announcement. It turns out that conservation matters a 
great deal, at least in California, at least for now. 
Photo: Inner circle: Cheney presiding over a meeting of the Energy Task Force 
last week in the vice president's ceremonial office 


Photo: Inner circle: Cheney presiding over a meeting of the Energy Task Force 
last week in the vice president's ceremonial office Photo: The outsider: 
Clapp claims the Bushies may be ginning up ``a fake energy crisis'' Graphic: 
(Chart) Energy Advocates in the Bush Pipeline (Graphic omitted) 

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 



UK: EMETRA plans weekly website metal auctions.

05/09/2001
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

LONDON, May 9 (Reuters) - Metals Internet trading group EMETRA is to host 
weekly auctions of physical metal on its trading platform, content manager 
James van Bregt said on Wednesday. 
As part of the development of its physical platform, EMETRA was due to hold 
four copper auctions on May 10, but in light of its users' interest, the 
company has not only increased the number of auctions but has decided to make 
them a regular feature.
"When you see how successful the auctions are and given the amount of 
interest we've had, this will be a weekly event," said van Bregt. 
"Our idea was to have four auctions taking place and in fact it was slightly 
swamped and we're now holding seven. In fact, we've even asked several 
participants to keep their powder dry until next week," he said. The seven 
auctions will be for 4,150 tonnes of copper, and one will be a warrant 
auction. 
Of the metal to go under the hammer, 500 tonnes will be available in 
Rotterdam, and another 1,150 in Rotterdam "or parity," van Bregt said. 
Another 1,500 tonnes will be available in parcels of 500 tonnes in Livorno, 
Shanghai and Carrollton, Georgia, while 1,000 tonnes will be available in 
Antofagasta in Chile. 
The "auction hour" will last from 1300 GMT to 1430 GMT, van Bregt said. 
"Provided we get a good level of bookings, say if four out of the seven 
auctions get done, then clearly that tells us that this is the way to do 
things," he said. 
EMETRA began trading on its physical platform last October on its website 
www.emetra.com, with over a million tonnes of liquidity. 
EMETRA was founded in February 2000 as a joint venture between London Metal 
Exchange ring dealer MG plc - subsequently bough by U.S. energy and power 
giant Enron Corp - Internet Capital Group and Safeguard International Fund. 
Last week, Peter Sellars, company chief executive, said that the company had 
secured additional funding to develop its physical platform, while putting 
its derivatives platform on a backburner. 
EMETRA is currently rolling out warrant trading, copper and aluminium rod 
trading and the first stage of its documentation centre.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


Business
Talking Stocks
David Haffenreffer, Christine Romans

05/09/2001
CNNfn: The Money Gang
(c) Copyright eMediaMillWorks, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, 
Inc.). All Rights Reserved.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNNfn ANCHOR, THE MONEY GANG: You`re watching THE MONEY 
GANG and we`re Talking Stocks. 
DAVID HAFFENREFFER, CNNfn ANCHOR, THE MONEY GANG: And joining us once again 
is David Katz from Matrix Asset Advisors.
ROMANS: Let`s hit the phones right away. California and Rich, hi there. 
CALLER: Hi. During the nice run up of the last month, I`d lost a painful 
amount of money in Enron (URL: http://.www.enron.com/) . I could never figure 
out what was wrong with this stock. I`d like to know that if you know. And 
also should I keep it and hope for a recovery or should I terminate and try 
to get well somewhere else? 
HAFFENREFFER: This is a familiar story. 
DAVID KATZ, MATRIX ASSET ADVISORS: Yes. In terms of looking at a stock that 
has performed poorly and hoping for a recovery, we generally would not do 
that. We would reassess why you bought the stock in the first place, are the 
fundamentals of the business strong enough. And if they are, we would stick 
with this stock as a losing investment. 
In terms of Enron, it`s been a great performer up until the last month. And, 
as technology has started to come back and as the market has come back, some 
of the stock that were leaders there`d been a lot of profit taking. We think 
that`s the case there. 
Basically we don`t have a strong opinion on this stock. We think it should 
trade up over the next year or two because they do have good fundamentals. So 
we`d stay with it but if the stock were to recover some, we`d take your money 
off the table. 
HAFFENREFFER: Another phone call now from Victor in Illinois. Hi Victor. 
CALLER: Hi. Good afternoon. My question and thoughts - your thoughts on Amgen 
(URL: http://www.amgen.com/) . 
KATZ: OK. Amgen is a - one of the most successful biotech companies. They`ve 
been so successful they`re no longer considered biotech. They`re considered a 
big drug company. 
We think that their prospects and their product line are good over the next 
year but the stock is selling north of 40 times earnings. We`re comfortable 
holding it. But, since you have a limited basket of money that you can put to 
work, we think there are better drug companies out there we prefer. 
We mentioned the Schering-Plough (URL: http://www.schering-plough.com/) 
earlier or Pharmacia (URL; http://www.pnu.com/) , Upjohn (URL: 
http://www.pnu.com/) or an Abbott Labs (URL: http://www.abbott.com/) we 
think, are not as much an upside, but they`ve got a lot less downside. And we 
think they`ll do real well over time. 
ROMANS: Let`s go to Missouri now where Roy has a question. 
Hi, Roy. 
CALLER: Hello. 
ROMANS: What would you like to know? 
CALLER: Hi, I`d like to know the year end of what Procter & Gamble (URL: 
http://www.pg.com/) looks like for the year and over the next year-and-a-half 
to two years if it`s a good buy now? or if I even need to mess with it? 
KATZ: We think it is a good buy now. The stock has been in the Wall Street 
penalty box for the last year. It`s down from $100 a share or more. They 
disappointed the Street so much that expectations were so low that they just 
made the numbers this quarter and all of the sudden the stock`s up $4 or $5. 
We think they`re slowly getting their act together. We think the stock will 
do better. Fundamentals are going to improve over the next year and we think 
the stock can trade back into the high 70s, low 80s. 
HAFFENREFFER: Last question of the afternoon goes to Charlie right here in 
New York. 
Hi, Charlie. 
CALLER: Hi, David. Thank you for taking my call. 
I have a question on Ariba (URL: http://www.ariba.com/) and ADC Telecom (URL: 
http://www.adc.com/) . Would this be a good time as an entry point in these 
stocks? I have about a one to two-year outlook, in other words, I intend to 
keep it for at least one or two years. So would this be a good buy at this 
time? 
KATZ: OK, in terms of Ariba, it`s a risky Internet stock. We would not get 
involved with that right now. In terms of ADC Telecom, they`ve also come down 
about 70 percent. We do think they have good prospects, short-term 
fundamentals are crummy. We don`t think the stock goes down a whole lot more. 
And we think the stock could double over the next two years. 
ROMANS: All right, let`s talk about just your market perception overall and, 
you know, we`ve taken questions from people about what they want to hear 
about, but what kind of stocks do you like? what are your big picks? 
KATZ: One, in terms of market outlook, we think stocks are be higher over the 
next 12 to 18 months. When earnings are crummy and the Fed is lowering rates, 
it`s generally a very good time to be buying stocks. We like select 
technology. Within technology, companies like Compaq (URL: 
http://www.compaq.com/) , which has been miserable, Hewlett-Packard (URL: 
http//www.hp.com) , we think is going to do very well over the next year. A 
smaller company, Adaptec (URL: http://www.adaptec.com/) selling at $11. We 
think it could be at $20. We like the financials. They generally do quite 
well when the Fed is easing. Companies like Comerica (URL: 
http://www.comerica.com/) , FleetBoston (URL: 
http://www.fleetbankbostonmerger.com/) , Bank of America (URL: 
http://www.bankamerica.com/) , all very good investments. We like some old 
economy stocks like a Leggett & Platt (URL: http://www.leggett.com/) or a 
Sherwin-Williams (URL: http://www.sherwin.com/) and select pharmaceuticals. 
We mentioned the Schering-Plough, Boston Scientific (URL: 
http://www.bsci.com/) . So you really want to diversify. Don`t make bets in 
any individual industries. Don`t make that to any individual stocks. 
ROMANS: OK. David Katz, good advice, Matrix Asset Advisors, thank you very 
much. 
KATZ: Thank you. 

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


Business Leader Joins Elite List; Peter Holt to be Honored at Dinner of 
Champions

05/09/2001
Business Wire
(Copyright (c) 2001, Business Wire)

SAN ANTONIO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 9, 2001--The National Multiple Sclerosis 
Society (NMSS) has announced that it will honor San Antonio Spurs Chairman 
and Owner Peter Holt at its First Annual Dinner of Champions on Thursday, 
Sept. 12, 2001. Holt will be presented the Hope Award in recognition of his 
unwavering support of the NMSS. Serving as dinner chairs of the event will be 
Tammy and Russ Bookbinder, executive vice president of the San Antonio Spurs. 
The black tie event will be held at 7 p.m. at The Westin -- La Cantera 
Resort. A "who's who" list of San Antonio business, political and social 
leaders are expected to attend. Funds raised will benefit the National 
Multiple Sclerosis Society -- Lone Star Chapter. 
Since its inception on a national level 27 years ago, the Dinner of Champions 
has raised more than $100 million for client programs, MS-related research 
and individuals living with MS. The honor represents the highest bestowed on 
an individual by the NMMS Society. Today, 70 major cities, from New York to 
Los Angeles and Chicago to Houston, honor prominent leaders and top 
executives on an annual basis. Past honorees include John Chambers, CEO of 
Cisco Systems Inc.; Peter Coors, CEO of Coors Brewing Company; Arthur 
Martinez, CEO of Sears and Roebuck; D. Mark Prestige, president of Tom Thumb; 
Jeffrey K. Skilling, president and CEO of Enron; Ron W. Haddock, president 
and CEO of FINA; and Tom Sherak, CEO of Twentieth Century Fox. Cumulatively, 
these honorees represent the most influential cast of corporate, political 
and entertainment leaders in the world.
Peter Holt is a shining example of this award and is no stranger to the fast 
track of global business. He is a strong proponent of leading by example 
through his value-based management philosophy. Since becoming the chairman of 
the board of the San Antonio Spurs in 1996, he has led the team in 
fund-raising and community outreach programs that range from the United Way 
to efforts with the Fannie Mae Foundation and the Spurs Drug Free League, 
which provides a safe place for grade school children to play basketball 
after school. 
Holt serves as chairman of the San Antonio Spurs and president and CEO of the 
San Antonio-based Holt Companies. The Holt Companies got its start in 1933 
when Holt's great uncle moved to San Antonio and opened a Caterpillar 
dealership. When the dealership's territory expanded and other dealerships 
opened, family members got involved in the business. 
Today, Holt Companies includes Holt Machinery Company, which includes the 
original Caterpillar dealership, and the San Antonio Spurs. "Working with 
volunteers on a community project, with the Spurs players and staff or with 
the Holt Companies, it's always the same," Holt said. "Treat people fairly 
and honestly, and the amount you can accomplish with others is far greater 
than anything you can do by yourself." 
Holt's sentiments are illustrated not only in his involvement with the MS 
Society, but also in his long-standing commitment to community service. He is 
a member of the World Presidents' Organization, sits on the board of the San 
Antonio Council on Drug and Alcohol Abuse, the United Way of San Antonio and 
Bexar County and is a trustee of the Palmer Drug Abuse Program. A decorated 
Vietnam War veteran, Holt ended his two years of service as a Sergeant E5 
with a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. 
The black tie, seated dinner, to be held at The Westin -- La Cantera Resort, 
is expected to raise several hundred thousand dollars for the National 
Multiple Sclerosis Society-Lone Star Chapter. Multiple Sclerosis, a disease 
of the central nervous system, affects an estimated one third of a million 
Americans. 
The NMSS, established in 1946, is the world's largest source of MS-related 
funds, with the exception of the U.S. Government. The Dinner of Champions 
enables the NMSS to continue its work in providing support services for 
people with MS and their families, as well as funding research into the cause 
and cure of this disease. The NMSS spends a larger percentage of revenue on 
direct services than any other voluntary health organization primarily 
serving adults. Close to home, the Lone Star Chapter serves more than 1,200 
people in San Antonio area.


CONTACT: Stevens Group, Houston Melissa Stevens, 800/279-9249 or 713/840-0555 
12:20 EDT MAY 9, 2001 

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 


INDIA: CMS evaluating options on India LNG project.
By Suresh Seshadri

05/09/2001
Reuters English News Service
(C) Reuters Limited 2001.

MADRAS, India, May 9 (Reuters) - U.S. firm CMS Energy Corp said on Wednesday 
it was disappointed with delays in getting a bankable guarantee for its 
Indian LNG-based power project and was now evaluating its options. 
The statement came close on the heels of U.S. energy giant Enron Corp's 
problems over its Indian unit's $2.9-billion, 2,184-MW project following the 
state power utility's refusal to honour a commitment to buy all its plant's 
power.
CMS, along with India's Grasim Industries , leads a consortium to build a 
$1.6-billion LNG-terminal-cum-power plant at Ennore port, north of Madras. 
"CMS is disappointed in the lack of progress by the Indian government," CMS 
Energy's director of communications, Kelly M. Farr, told Reuters by e-mail. 
"We are evaluating our options and will choose a course of action which 
optimises the value for all of our Indian investments," Farr added. 
India's Financial Express daily said last month that CMS had written to Prime 
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee seeking his intervention for providing a 
payment security mechanism guaranteed by the federal government, to arrange 
project funding. 
In January, India's finance ministry indicated it may scrap a plan to extend 
sovereign guarantees to three mega power projects, including the Ennore LNG 
project. 
The paper said CMS had indicated its impatience with continued delays in 
providing a guarantee and hinted it may have to pull out of the project in 
case of any further delay. 
The 1,850-MW Ennore project has been promoted by the Dakshin Bharat Energy 
consortium which also includes Germany's Siemens , Australia's Woodside and 
Unocal Corp . 
ENRON SHADOW 
Enron's troubled Indian unit, Dabhol Power Company, finds its nearly complete 
$2.9-billion, 2,184-MW project embroiled in a controversy over the state 
power utility's refusal to honour a commitment to buy all the plant's power. 
The Maharashtra State Electricity Board, which says the power is too costly, 
has defaulted on monthly payments to DPC for the electricity it has taken, 
forcing DPC's board to authorise its management to terminate the contract. 
The CMS-led consortium won the LNG project from the Tamil Nadu state 
government in 1998 and plans to build a 2.5-million tonnes a year LNG import, 
storage and regasification terminal. 
The LNG is to be imported from Qatar's RasGas and the electricity from the 
power plant will be sold to the federal government-owned Power Trading Corp 
of India. 
India opened up its generation sector almost 10 years ago but investment has 
been scarce as most of the country's power distribution is done by 
cash-strapped, state-owned utilities.

Copyright , 2000 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 






The Latest California Power Craze: A Windfall Profits Tax Bill
By Christopher Edmonds 
Special to TheStreet.com
5/9/01 3:17 PM ET 







"Enough already." 
That's the message Raymond James' power analyst Fred Schultz has for 
California and its politicians. 
As the Golden State faces another day of rolling blackouts, Edison 
International (EIX:NYSE - news) begs its lenders not to push its utility -- 
Southern California Edison -- into bankruptcy; Gov. Gray Davis meets with the 
generators he loves to hate; and the generators face the possibility of a 
windfall profits tax. 
Schultz, meanwhile, hopes common sense will soon prevail over the current 
punitive, political nonsene. He is referring to the recent rash of political 
action aimed at the profits of generators that sell power into the California 
market, specifically, the California Assembly's and Senate's moves to impose 
a windfall profits tax on generators. 
On Monday, the Senate passed a bill that would require generators to fork 
over every dollar they charge for power above an $80 per megawatt hour (MWh) 
threshold to the state in the form of a tax. 
Unfortunately, it's the California consumer who is left in the dark by the 
politics of power. 
The bill would effectively set price caps -- something that is really the 
purview of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC. The bill now 
moves to the Assembly, where it appears to have support. In fact, the 
Assembly is considering its own version of the windfall profits legislation, 
lowering the threshold to $60 per MWh. 
Schultz says this action simply highlights the counterproductive nature of 
California's punitive, political approach to solving the state's energy 
crisis. "This round of legislative action is defeating, time-wasting and 
value-destroying," he says. "The initiatives under way, if passed, will 
ultimately destroy the California power markets as we know them today." 
He has a point. The problem in California is a lack of electricity supply, a 
result of a decade of regulatory posturing that discouraged the development 
of new power plants to meet the surging demand for power from the burgeoning 
high-tech economy. 
At the very time California pols should be focused on encouraging new 
generation, they are proposing policies that actually discourage new 
development. "California legislators should ask themselves this: Does taxing 
the sale price for electricity create more electricity supply or less?" 
Schultz asks rhetorically, invoking a lesson from the Boston Tea Party in his 
answer. "Less! Samuel Adams must be spinning in his grave right now. How in 
The Almighty's name is this sort of ass-backward legislation going to create 
more energy in the state?" 
And, now some members of the state Legislature say they don't even need the 
assistance of generating companies to solve the problem -- they'll build the 
plants themselves. A power company with Davis as the CEO and engineered by 
members of the legislature, the same group that managed to create the 
policies that led to the current crisis, isn't terribly comforting. 
The state needs the help of the generating companies. Companies such as AES 
(AES:NYSE - news) Calpine (CPN:NYSE - news), Duke (DUK:NYSE - news) Dynegy 
(DYN:NYSE - news), Mirant (MIR:NYSE - news), NRG (NRG:NYSE - news) and 
Reliant (REI:NYSE - news) can and will help California solve their supply 
problems if they are given a chance. 
Fortunately, few observers believe the windfall tax bill will be enacted and 
even fewer think such a law would withstand a constitutional challenge. 
"We do not expect the proposed legislation to be enacted into law," Deutsche 
Bank Alex. Brown power analyst Jay Dobson told clients on Tuesday. "The law 
as currently written would provide a major disincentive to both the 
development of new generating assets as well as the operation of high cost 
existing assets. This would further exacerbate the shortage of generating 
capacity in the state at a time when the shortage is likely to seem most 
acute." 
Schultz is more direct. "This is warped." 
Windfall Tax: Dimming for Generators?
As rolling blackouts get more frequent, the political hyperbole in Sacramento 
only will increase. And, with other punitive measures similar to the windfall 
tax likely to surface, investors are concerned about the impact of such 
proposals on generating companies doing business in the, er, tarnished state. 
Alex. Brown's Dobson expects some giddiness in the stocks of generators as 
temperatures -- both atmospheric and political -- rise. "Although we don't 
expect the proposed legislation to pass, we do expect the level of 'headline' 
risk to remain high," he notes. "This will likely lead to more volatility for 
the generation stocks in the near term." 
Still, Dobson predicts the "generation sector will outperform" as profits 
surpass expectations this summer. His favorite names are Calpine, Reliant and 
AES. He rates all strong buy. His firm has recently provided banking services 
for Calpine and Reliant. 
Schultz says Calpine and Mirant stand out in the group, a result of their 
approach to the California markets. "Calpine and Mirant are reinvesting 
heavily in California and are in the game for the long haul," he notes. 
"Unlike the Texas trio [Enron (ENE:NYSE - news), Dynegy and Reliant] that 
receives a lot of criticism from the governor, both Calpine and Mirant are 
dealt with favorably and receive the benefit of the doubt in Sacramento. They 
have dedicated millions of dollars to the development of meaningful power 
supplies in the state." He rates both strong buy and his firm has not 
provided recent banking services to either. 
He also notes that Calpine has long-term power supply contracts that would 
avoid the punitive measures of a windfall profits tax, and Mirant is "more 
than adequately" reserved for possible write-offs associated with outstanding 
receivables for selling power in the state. 
Davis Meets the Generators
The governor has summoned top executives from the generating companies to 
Sacramento on Wednesday to discuss the current crisis and possible solutions. 
However, many important players -- including Calpine, Dynegy and Enron -- may 
not even show up. 
Many of the generating companies are soured by Davis' refusal to "call off 
the dogs" in his investigations of possible collusion, price gouging and 
intentional withholding of generation during periods of high demand. At the 
same time, Davis is hoping to convince the generators to forgive a large 
portion of past receivables, to cut prices on long-term power contracts, and 
to build new low-cost generation. 
The irony isn't lost on Schultz. "Davis now has a Senate-backed initiative to 
castrate the earnings stream of wholesale generators should he choose to back 
such an initiative," he notes. "Who in their right mind would walk into a 
poker game knowing the deck was rigged against them? Is extortion still a 
crime?" 
Maybe this time around, Davis will put his cards on the table. If not, the 
generators have every right to walk away from the table.