Dan Walters: Blame game over California's energy crisis will continue for 
years
(Published July 24, 2001) 
The wrestling match between politicians and Enron Corp. moved into a more 
intense arena over the weekend when a state Senate investigating committee 
sought contempt penalties because the huge energy company has refused to turn 
over internal documents. 
Although Houston-based Enron owns no major power plants in California, it has 
adopted the toughest stance of all energy companies against the multiple 
investigations of why wholesale energy prices spiked so high. And it has 
become, in turn, a whipping boy for California politicians. 
At one point last spring, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said he wanted 
criminal charges against Enron and its chairman, Kenneth Lay. "I would love 
to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a 
tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey,' " Lockyer said. With 
less colorful language, Gov. Gray Davis has often castigated Texas-based 
companies as price gougers -- even though Texas firms have been fairly minor 
suppliers to California. 
Some of it is just buzzword politics. Lockyer and Davis know that 
Californians dislike anything associated with Texas, and Lay has been one of 
President Bush's major political supporters. Enron, meanwhile, cites the 
rhetoric as evidence that Lockyer, Davis and legislative investigators are 
interested less in finding the truth than in seeking scapegoats. Enron also 
filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of the Senate's subpoenas of trading 
data. 
Most other energy companies have complied with the demands, creating 
Sacramento repositories of the data under elaborate confidentiality 
agreements worked out with the special Senate committee headed by Sen. Joseph 
Dunn, D-Santa Ana. But Enron has refused, and on Saturday, Dunn submitted a 
report asking the Senate for "an appropriate coercive sanction." 
Does Enron have something to hide? Or does it sincerely believe that what's 
happening in California is political scapegoating? Are the companies' fears 
about the confidentiality of the data sought by the Senate justified? Would 
data be selectively leaked to show the firms in the worst light? Would data 
be used by competitors? Or could the information find its way into the hands 
of class-action attorneys? 
Dunn, a prominent trial attorney himself, insists that confidentiality will 
be protected and that the information being sought is only for legislative 
purposes. But Enron and the other companies have some reason to be wary of 
turning over confidential information to politicians. Similar information was 
leaked -- without penalty -- in last year's investigation of former state 
Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush. And there are indications that 
private lawyers are working closely with investigators. 
Mike Aguirre, the San Diego attorney seeking a "smoking gun" to prove 
collusion among energy companies, supplied Dunn's committee with a few 
dissident Duke Energy workers who alleged, in highly publicized hearings, 
that the firm had manipulated production at its San Diego plant to create 
artificial shortages and drive up spot market power prices. Duke then refuted 
the charges by releasing some excerpts from the records of the Independent 
System Operator, the controller of California's power grid, indicating that 
ISO had ordered the plant operational changes. 
Aguirre subsequently asked the governor's office to pressure the ISO -- now 
under Davis' direct control -- to release all of the Duke-related documents 
that would show, he says, that the firm actually manipulated the situation. 
Duke and other companies insist that the ISO-held documents are proprietary. 
Aguirre pleaded with one Davis adviser in an e-mail that "we need your help 
in properly getting this information out." But Aguirre, in an interview, said 
he had not yet obtained cooperation from Davis aides. 
The political and legal struggle to affix blame for California's energy woes 
will continue for months, perhaps years. The crisis will cost ratepayers at 
least $50 billion, and they'll want to know why as they make out their 
utility bill checks. 
The Bee's Dan Walters can be reached at (916) 321-1195 or dwalters@sacbee.com 
<mailto:dwalters@sacbee.com>.