Tuesday, May 22, 2001

Legislators Set to Sue Federal Energy Agency 
 Power: Lawmakers try a new idea: a lawsuit arguing that blackouts pose 
danger to people, law enforcement and even water supply. 


By DAN MORAIN, Times Staff Writer

     SACRAMENTO--Legislative Democrats today will sue federal energy 
regulators, charging that their inaction threatens elderly people in nursing 
homes, children in day care centers, law enforcement and its ability to fight 
crime, and the state's drinking water supplies. 
     Rather than focus on record wholesale energy costs, the lawsuit takes a 
new tack, homing in on the threat to health and safety posed by California's 
energy crisis and the blackouts likely this summer. 
     A draft of the suit seeks to force the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission to set "just and reasonable" wholesale power rates as a way of 
ending the crisis before blackouts occur. The action is being filed by 
veteran trial attorney Joe Cotchett on behalf of Senate President Pro Tem 
John Burton (D-San Francisco), Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman 
Oaks), and the city of Oakland. 
     "A crisis of unprecedented dimensions is already taking shape in 
California," the draft says. "The public health, safety and welfare of the 
state's 34 million residents is in jeopardy due to the tragic consequences of 
rolling blackouts and punitive prices." 

     Suit Says Blackouts Pose Threats 
     Until now, most California officials, including Gov. Gray Davis, have 
been urging that the regulatory commission cap wholesale power prices as a 
way of limiting costs to the state, which has spent more than $6 billion 
buying electricity since January. 
     In the lawsuit, Cotchett will be arguing that while higher bills will 
stretch the budgets of people on fixed incomes, frail elderly people "are 
left to wonder if their oxygen tanks, drip IVs, dialysis machines and 
electricity-powered therapeutic beds will respond when they are needed." 
     "Rolling blackouts represent more than just an annoyance for the men, 
women and children with disabilities," the suit says. "They represent an 
imminent threat to life, health and independence." 
     Cotchett said the suit will be filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of 
Appeals in San Francisco, bypassing the federal trial court. Cotchett said 
the circuit court has direct jurisdiction over FERC. 
     Joining Cotchett will be Clark Kelso, a professor at McGeorge Law School 
in Sacramento who briefly was insurance commissioner last year after Chuck 
Quackenbush resigned. Kelso said he initially was skeptical that lawmakers 
had legal standing to sue. But after Cotchett spoke with him, Kelso said he 
became convinced the suit had merit. 
     "Let's face it," said Kelso, a Republican, "this is the single most 
important issue that the state faces for the next six months." 

     Watching the Water Supply 
     The suit cites warnings from governmental agencies about the 
implications of blackouts, including one the state Department of Health 
Services issued earlier this month to public water agencies statewide. The 
warning contains a sample notice that local water authorities should give to 
consumers. 
     "If the water looks cloudy or dirty," the warning says, "you should not 
drink it." The warning suggests that if people are concerned about water 
quality, they can boil it or add "eight drops of household bleach to one 
gallon of water, and let it sit for 30 minutes." 
     Most water agencies have back-up generators. But the suit says that "if 
an agency's water treatment facilities are hit by a power outage, a two-hour 
blackout can result in two-day interruptions in providing safe drinking water 
because of time needed to bring equipment back online and flush potentially 
contaminated water from the system." 

  Copyright 2001 Los Angeles Times 
 

Sue Mara
Enron Corp.
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