Senate approves Edison rescue deal, Assembly measure stalled
By Jennifer Coleman 
Associated Press Writer 
SACRAMENTO (AP) -- The state Senate approved a bill that significantly alters the plan negotiated by Gov. Gray Davis to help the struggling utility Southern California Edison. 
The bill approved Friday, authored by Democratic Sens. Richard Polanco and Byron Sher, lets Edison issue $2.5 billion in revenue bonds to pay debts amassed when prices for wholesale electricity reached record-high levels in the last year. 
"I believe it's a measure that gets us to the goal of getting the state out of the business of buying electricity ... and to bring this entity to creditworthiness," said Polanco, D-Los Angeles. 
Approved 22-17, the bill now goes to the Assembly. The Assembly adjourned Friday night without voting on a similar measure. 
The Polanco-Sher plan shifts the burden of repaying the bonds to commercial and industrial power users and has been opposed by business interests and by Edison, which says it won't help the company escape bankruptcy. 
Davis' plan, announced in April, offers Edison $2.76 billion for its transmission system and lets it sell revenue bonds to repay the rest of its estimated $3.5 billion worth of debt generated when it had to pay skyrocketing wholesale power prices. 
Under the plan by Polanco, and Sher, of Stanford, the state has a five-year option to buy Edison's grid. 
That, said Republican Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine, gives Edison a bailout it "neither needs nor deserves. 
"I am tired of this projection of Edison as a victim. They have their legion of lobbyists here telling us ad nauseam that they didn't support deregulation," Johnson said during floor debate. "The idea of Edison as the victim goes down in the annals of real whoppers. Edison paid their lobbyists bonuses for the successful passage of deregulation." 
During the 1995-1996 deliberations that led to deregulation, Edison officials helped create the current system in meetings with business interests and then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican. 
Lawmakers are set to go on summer break Friday night until Aug. 20, a schedule that conflicts with the deadline in the Memorandum of Understanding between Davis and Edison. That says the Legislature must approve the deal by Aug. 15. 
"It's a firm deadline, which means this issue has to be fully resolved prior to the end of the legislative recess," Davis said Friday. 
For that to happen, either the Senate bill or a proposal by Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, and Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, has to reach Davis. 
"I have problems with both bills," Davis said. "I am heartened by the fact that there's a bill moving in each house." 
The Keeley-Hertzberg plan trims at least $300 million from the governor's offer. It also allows Edison to issue the bonds, which would be repaid by Edison ratepayers over 10 years. 
The plan also attempts to increase the state's use of "green" energy resources and allow Edison customers to opt for cheaper direct-access energy service. 
The Assembly didn't vote on the Keeley bill Friday, because Hertzberg is considering forming a working group with the Senate and the administration to "iron out the bills' differences," said Hertzberg's spokesman Paul Hefner. 
Davis said he wanted any working group to continue working over the summer break to devise a compromise by the Aug. 15 deadline. 
"I don't want people to go out fishing for 30 days and come back and worry about it on Aug. 20 because I know we're going to have reapportionment and other major issues to deal with in that last month," the governor said. 

On the Net: 
Read the bills, AB82xx by Keeley and SB78xx by Polanco, at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov 
Read the governor's Memorandum of Understanding at