California Dimming
The Times of India, 01/26/2001 

Investors Decide to Stick with Safer Bets on Wall Street Yesterday While...
Pittsburgh Post - Gazette, 01/26/2001

I'll BE SEEING YOU IN 4 MONTHS, 
The Boston Globe, 01/26/2001

The President's First Message
Buainess Standard, 01/26/2001

Your Friday Night
Lamorinda Dems Share Laughs, Rally Troops After Loss
The San Francisco Chronicle, 01/26/2001

As Demands for Energy Multiply, Farms Stage a Comeback--- Phalanxes of 
Whirring Turbines could be a Partial Antidote for Blackouts in California
the Wall Street Journal, 01/26/2001

International 
World Watch
The Wall Street Journal, 01/26/2001

Houston Chronicle Working Column
01/26/2001

California Dimming

01/26/2001
The Times of India
Copyright (C) 2001 The Times of India; Source: World Reporter (TM)

Those of us who couldn't conceal their glee at the world's most advanced and 
powerful democracy taking weeks to count a few thousand ballots and not 
getting it right, now have something more to gloat over. California, 
America's largest state and "that advance post of our civilisation" as J B 
Priestley called it, is in the grip of an acute power crisis. The two 
companies which distribute power over most of the state are on the verge of 
bankruptcy and the state government has had to come to their rescue and 
disburse funds for payment to wholesale power suppliers - shades of our own 
Maharashtra State Electricity Board and Enron. A state of emergency has been 
declared and millions of homes and businesses are being subjected to "rolling 
blackouts", or staggered power cuts. The authorities are not putting out a 
loadshedding schedule for fear that it might encourage looters and arsonists 
who would know that burglar alarms would be off. The clockwork-like economy 
has been seriously disrupted as traffic lights, ATMs, petrol pumps and 
electronic checkout counters go on the blink and Californians stock up on 
flashlights, candles, generators, wood-burning stoves and firewood. At the 
Folsom headquarters of Intel, the company whose chips are powering most of 
the world's computers, people are carrying on gamely with their work under 
dim lights. 
As the saying goes, "What California is today, we shall all be tomorrow" - 
hence it is instructive to understand how the state got into this mess. The 
deregulation law of 1996 attempted to create a market for wholesale power by 
"unbundling" the generation, transmission and distribution functions - 
something that is on the anvil in India too. However, the market was 
hamstrung from the beginning by various flawed policies, including a "cap" 
placed on the retail power tariff and a decision by the authorities to 
disallow power companies the freedom to enter into long-term contracts for 
power purchase. Also, the tough environmental regulations in the state and 
the attitude of many local communities ("Not in my backyard") meant that old 
power plants shut down, no new ones came up, and the generation within the 
state actually went down over the last ten years. As the demand increased 
steadily, particularly in the Silicon Valley with its power-guzzling "data 
hotels" and "server farms", the state became ever more dependent on external 
sources particularly from the Pacific Northwest. Rapid economic growth in the 
northern states, and low water levels this season in the hydro-power dams, 
meant less surplus to California, leading to a sharp increase in wholesale 
power rates. The lessons are clear - for California, and for us in India. 
First, you can't legislate away economic laws - supply and demand have a way 
of catching up with you. Second, as power is a capital-intensive, 
long-gestation industry, the policy framework has to provide for adequate 
capacity to come up over the long-term. Third, regulation can and should 
smooth out price volatility, but tariff caps will only distort the market and 
pave the way for systemic crises. And lastly, power is a key infrastructure 
for a modern economy and there is really no alternative to a smooth 
changeover to deregulated markets - the UK and many other states in the US 
have successfully accomplished this.
BUSINESS
[ Investors decided to stick with safer bets on Wall Street yesterday while 
... ]
HED: DOW RISES, NASDAQ FALLS,INVESTORS EYE EARNINGS, FEDBY AMY BALDWIN, THE 
ASSOCIATED PRESS

01/26/2001
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
REGION
B-15
(Copyright 2001)

Investors decided to stick with safer bets on Wall Street yesterday while 
they contemplated the future of earnings and the economy. The market bid blue 
chips higher, but cashed in recent gains in the battered tech sector. 
Although big-name companies reported fourth-quarter results largely in line 
with expectations, analysts said investors kept their focus on forecasts for 
2001.
"Fourth-quarter earnings have really left the radar screen for most 
investors," said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Legg Mason of 
Baltimore. 
The Dow Jones industrial made a solid advance, closing up 82.55 at 10,729.52. 
Broader market indexes declined. The Nasdaq composite index fell 104.87 to 
2,754.28, and the broader Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 6.79 to 
1,357.51. 
The market is so focused on corporate performance during the first half of 
this year that even Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan failed to move 
stock prices. Greenspan testified before Congress, speaking mostly about 
longer-term tax cuts but also signaling that interest rates are likely to 
drop further. 
While investors are cautious, the mood on Wall Street is slightly more upbeat 
than in recent months, analysts said. The market is hopeful that earnings and 
the economy will soon improve, particularly as interest rates decline. 
The Fed is expected to cut rates for the second time this month when it meets 
next week. That expectation factored into some of yesterday's tech sector 
selling, said Cripps of Legg Mason. 
"There's some gamesmanship going on in advance of the Fed meeting," Cripps 
said, noting that investors who have been buying on expectations of a rate 
cut are likely to sell if and when the Fed takes that action. 
Dell, which earlier in the week rebounded from a poor first- quarter earnings 
outlook, lost 69 cents to close at $26.44. Computer equipment maker EMC fell 
$2.94 to $76.50 after rising earlier in the week on earnings that were 2 
cents a share higher than expectations. 
While past earnings are important, the market typically is most concerned 
about companies' future profitability. That was evident yesterday in a sharp 
decline among companies that make fiber optic and other networking equipment. 
Corning skidded nearly 20 percent, finishing down $13.88 at $56.25. The maker 
of fiber optic cables warned late Wednesday that its customers had cut back 
their orders through the first half of the year. 
"People are spooked by the guidance given by Corning" said Charles White, 
portfolio manager for Avatar Associates. 
JDS Uniphase, which tumbled $7.88 to $55.19, recouped 74 cents in 
extended-hours trading. The fiber optic maker announced after the market 
closed that it beat second-quarter predictions by 2 cents a share. The 
company also said it expected third-quarter sales to rise as much as 10 
percent. 
Meanwhile, blue chips got a lift from so-called defensive issues such as drug 
and energy stocks that tend to do better in bearish markets. Eli Lilly, which 
met expectations and said the first half of the year should be strong, gained 
31 cents at $83.06. 
Investors rewarded Enron for saying 2001 profits likely will surpass 
analysts' predictions. The energy company rose $2.25 to $82.
Op-Ed
I'LL BE SEEING YOU IN 4 MONTHS
DAVID NYHAN, GLOBE STAFF

01/26/2001
The Boston Globe
THIRD
A15
(Copyright 2001)

THE GOING RATE FOR A RUN-OF-THE-MILL CAMEL IN THE GOBI DESERT IN 1996 WAS 
$250, FOR A WEARY ANIMAL WITH THE MONGOLIAN CAMEL-DRIVER'S EQUIVALENT OF A 
DENTED FENDER, AND IT MIGHT GET A LITTLE WHEEZY BETWEEN WATER HOLES. BUT IF 
YOU WANTED A GOOD ONE, WITH LOW MILEAGE, SOUND OF HOOF AND LUNG, IT WOULD 
COST YOU $500. WHO TOLD ME THAT? MY FRIEND AMAR, A FELLOW NEWSPAPERMAN FROM 
ULAN BATOR, THE METROPOLIS OF MONGOLIA. AND HOW DID HE COME TO BE MY FRIEND? 
BECAUSE WE WERE BOTH ESCAPED NEWSPAPERMEN, COOLING OUR JETS AND RECHARGING 
THE OLD BRAIN PAN AS FELLOWS AT OXFORD'S REUTERS FOUNDATION. WHY DO I BRING 
THAT UP? Because as of Monday I take up another fellowship, at Harvard's 
Kennedy School of Government, at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, 
Politics and Public Policy, where I expect to learn some equally interesting 
things. Like Oxford, it's another crossroads of the planet. So for the spring 
semester I'll be sequestered. No columns from yours truly for four months. 
Since I last sojourned in Cambridge as a skinny undergraduate, I've added 
several notches on the beltline, a few zeros in the bank book, and many miles 
on the odometer. I stood with the mob in front of Dillon Field House the day 
McGeorge Bundy introduced Fidel as "Dr. Castro," and the doctor is still 
running Cuba, but just about everything else has changed.
As a 17-year-old I sat in the Harvard Club's baronial banquet hall when a 
bronzed Senator Jack Kennedy dashed off a witty speech to the Crimson 
football banquet. He got elected president when I was a sophomore. Now I'll 
have an office, a phone, and something Kennedy never dreamed of - a computer 
wired to something called the Internet - at a school named after him. 
Speaking of the Internet, I apologize in advance for my absence to you folks 
in wired-land. It is not an unmixed blessing to receive as many as 1,000 
e-mails a week urging this or that, praising this or that, damning this or 
that. Through change of season, fashion or administration, I understand that 
you are not unanimous by any stretch, but you are passionate, sometimes 
beyond belief (or reason, in a few cases). 
But I know some of you - the lady married to the diplomat in Islamabad, the 
hardy souls bucking the Sun Belt mentality in the great South and West, the 
Meridian, Miss., correspondent who urged me to "reload and charge on with our 
support," the gal from Black Mountain, N.C., the keep-your-outrage-going man 
from New York, ditto for the Madison, Ala., fellow - some of you will miss 
your Dave. "It is now 26 years since I left Boston and you remind me how I 
miss those terse tart tongues," says Susan of "So much for civility." 
From Royal Oak, Mich., Maia says "please keep calling 'em as so many of us 
see 'em." Demurs "a lady in Washington state": "My goodness, you are either a 
very angry individual or a poor loser . . . why don't you write about 
something uplifting and heartwarming?" Good point. I'll mull that over for 
the next four months. By that time, our new president will have had his 100 
days, and he'll have had time to "restore honor and integrity to the White 
House." And, "sit back, have a tax cut on us, and enjoy the ride," says one 
happy Bob from Nashville. Go for it, Roberto. 
"You should be ashamed to author such divisive . . . ," scolds J.G. from 
British Columbia. A Filipino woman living here worries that tolerance may be 
in jeopardy. A daughter of German refugees writes from Florida that "big 
corporations are now controlling the government." 
Jason, a shrewd observer of the oil patch, details exploding oil company 
profits, urging a column on big oil's influence with the new gang in charge. 
Sorry, Jason; if I wasn't out of here today, I'd be banging away at Enron 
Corp., the Houston outfit that wholesales more electricity and owns more gas 
pipelines than anyone. Enron scores monstrous profits off California's energy 
shortfall, and Enron executives comprise the biggest bundled contributor to 
President Bush's political campaigns, reports the watchdog Center for Public 
Integrity, including $550,000 for last week's inaugural bash. 
But the Bush-watch will proceed without me for the next four months. I am 
outta here! I go back to brick halls where I sat, totally consumed by David 
Riesman's dissection of "The Lonely Crowd," Walter Jackson Bate's unfurling 
of English literature, Erik Erikson ushering in a redoubtable woman wearing a 
cape and leaning on a hefty walking staff: Margaret Mead. 
I'll be checking in on Ken and Kitty Galbraith, and some Sundays I'll be in 
the back pews listening as the Rev. Peter Gomes uncorks some of the best 
sermonizing you find on any Sunday anywhere. Nights might find me at the 
American Repertory Theater, waiting for one of Jeremy Geidt's comic turns. 
There's lots to see and do; they have everything but camels. 
With my new fellow fellows, I'll soak up every scrap and come back with a 
better attitude and more humility, a course of action urged upon me by many 
of my conservative friends. Good luck; see you on D- Day. 
David Nyhan's e-mail address is nyhan@globe.com.
The President's first message
Our Editorial

01/26/2001
Business Standard
9
Copyright (c) Business Standard

The government of George W Bush, America's new President, has sent a message. 
It was for the Prime Minister, whose name Mr Bush once could not remember 
when asked in an interview. But Enron must have forcefully brought to his 
attention the name of Vilasrao Deshmukh, the chief minister of Maharashtra. 
After watching the chief minister's gyrations for months, Richard Celeste, 
the US ambassador, called on him on Tuesday, and offered to mediate between 
him and Enron. 
If Mr Deshmukh in his innocence thinks that this was a samaritan's offer of 
good offices, he is sadly mistaken. For Mr Celeste represents and speaks for 
the US government even when he offers to mediate. What he conveyed was the 
interest of the US government in an amicable solution and its potential 
displeasure if, as Mr Deshmukh is tempted to do, his government reneges on 
its contractual obligations to Enron. For Mr Deshmukh has stressed in recent 
weeks that the Maharashtra government cannot honour the contract. Now he 
should be under no doubt that if he proves as good as his word, he will 
involve his country in a major contretemps with the US government for which 
he will earn no thanks from Delhi.
Mr Deshmukh is reported to have told Mr Celeste that he proposed to set up a 
high-powered committee, and that it was delayed because there were too many 
candidates. He was not telling the entire truth _ which is that this 
committee will carry no credibility since it will be appointed by the party 
that wants to break the contract. To get around this, Mr Deshmukh has been 
putting enormous pressure on Mumbai's most respected banker to accept the 
chairmanship; but public-spirited as he is, the banker is obviously reluctant 
to step into Mr Deshmukh's parlour. 
For the chairman will only be a name; the hatchet job will be done by the 
other members of Mr Deshmukh's choice. And their job will be to invent 
reasons why the Maharashtra government should breach the agreement. Nor will 
they have to go far to invent the reasons, for Mr Deshmukh gave Mr Celeste 
his own - which is that because power users in Maharashtra are used to paying 
low tariffs, they cannot really be expected to pay enough to compensate Enron
. In other words, he does not want to let MSEB raise tariffs, for that would 
land him in political hot water. 
The irony is that the first contract with Enron was signed by the Congress 
government of Sharad Pawar; although the two parted ways, both are supporting 
Mr Deshmukh's government. So the latter is, in a sense, the former 
government's political and legal successor, and has absolutely no grounds for 
raising doubts on the contract. Its problem arises because the intervening 
BJP-Shiv Sena government gave power tariff concessions to farmers which made 
MSEB bankrupt, and raising them would make Mr Deshmukh unpopular. But 
governments are not simply instruments politicians can use to buy popularity; 
they are institutions to take decisions in a country's or state's interests 
on issues that divide the people. Mr Deshmukh should for once consider 
putting the interests of Maharashtra over those of his party, bite the bullet 
and allow MSEB to charge the tariffs as determined by the State Electricity 
Regulatory Commission from time to time.
CONTRA COSTA FRIDAY
Your Friday Night
Lamorinda Dems Share Laughs, Rally Troops After Loss
Sam McManis

01/26/2001
The San Francisco Chronicle
EDITION: ZONE =
2
(Copyright 2001)

Inauguration eve for the man whom liberals call the "President Select" 
coincided with the monthly meeting of the Lamorinda Democratic Club last 
Friday night, so visitors expected either a wake or a festival of whining and 
teeth gnashing. 
What wasn't expected was . . . laughter?
Hearty, infectious belly laughs spilled out of the meeting room and out into 
the hallway of the Orinda Community Church. Deep concern and calls to action 
would come later, of course, but during the potluck and gab session before 
the meeting, a gallows humor reigned. 
"You heard this one?" asks 84-year-old Lafayette resident Jop Van Overveen. 
"Einstein, Picasso and George W. die in a plane crash and go to the Pearly 
Gates. St. Peter says you got to prove who you are to get in. Einstein says, 
'Give me a chalkboard.' And he does mathematical calculations. Peter says, 
'OK, you're Einstein. Go in.' Picasso's next. He says, 'Give me an easel and 
paint.' And he paints a masterpiece. Peter says, 'OK, you're Picasso.' 
"Then, George W. steps up. Peter explains that he has to prove his identity, 
just like Einstein and Picasso. And W. says, 'Einstein and Picasso? Who are 
they?' Peter says, 'Yup, you're Bush. Go on in.' " 
A gaggle of Contra Costa Democrats twirling pasta at the table erupted in 
guffaws. Sure, they've heard that one before. In fact, they may have used the 
same joke years ago when President Bush's father was in power. But, to them, 
it was better than crying in their casserole over the acrimonious, 
ballot-bickering election. 
"After tomorrow night, I guess we'll be saying 'Hail to the Thief,' " says 
Betty Lou Kasnoff, president of 20-year-old this partisan group which has 
close to 100 members. 
"Yeah, that's why I'm dressed all in black," says Richard Johnson, who also 
is sporting a "Clinton '92" button smack dab in the middle of chest. 
Here comes another member passing out freshly minted bumper stickers reading, 
"Don't Blame Me . . . I Didn't Vote For Jeb." Valerie Sloven has picked up a 
few and is telling anyone who will listen that she's protesting the 
inauguration by staging a voter- registration campaign at the SunValley Mall. 
"You know," boasts Barbara Boyle, "except for (Assemblywoman Lynne) Leach, 
we've almost gotten rid of all the Republicans." 
Louise's husband, John Clark, is thumbing through the club's January 
newsletter. In it is an anonymous poem, titled "Bipartisan Cooperation." The 
last stanza reads: 
Humor, apparently, proved therapeutic for the group of about 50, because the 
mood is anything but downcast. Perhaps "festively sarcastic" better describes 
it. 
"I was depressed, really depressed after the election," says Sloven of 
Orinda. "But, after a while, you pick yourself up and fight back." 
Boyle certainly seems ready to do battle. She had brought a back- issue of 
Mother Jones magazine, which included an article about then- Texas Gov. 
Bush's interests in Enron's controversial deal to put a pipeline in 
Argentina. She reads aloud two paragraphs, then condemns what she calls a 
"blatant conflict of interest." 
Social hour over, Kasnoff brings the meeting to order. The guest speaker is 
Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California Energy 
Institute. Before Borenstein talks about energy deregulation and presents his 
solutions to the crisis, Kasnoff introduces two women who are lobbying for 
passage of Measure B, the Acalanes High School District parcel. The women 
want the club's endorsement. 
Borenstein speaks for an hour, outlines how California got into its current 
energy mess and how he and his colleagues at UC Berkeley propose to ease the 
long-term burden. Deregulation is not a popular word among Democrats. But 
Borenstein is not anti-deregulation across the board, which doesn't please 
the hard-core Dems. 
"The big mistake was policy by analogy," he begins, "saying, 'Well, it worked 
for the airlines, so it'll work for electricity." 
Borenstein proposes varying electricity prices depending on the time of day, 
charging up to 50 cents per megawatt hour during peak periods and lower rates 
at other times. So people who consume the most power during peak periods pay 
the most. 
"That makes it cost-effective to conserve energy," Borenstein says. "It has 
an attractive environmental benefit, too. It would reduce the number of 
view-destroying, property-value decreasing energy plants." 
The crowd murmurs its assent. Borenstein knows his audience. But, during the 
post-speech question-and-answer period, he did rankle a few liberal feathers 
when he suggested that homes that augment energy needs with solar panels do 
not save much money. 
Folks pepper Borenstein with questions for nearly a half-hour, until Kasnoff 
intervenes and closes the meeting. People linger for a few more minutes, 
chatting up Borenstein and each other. But most make sure to grab that 
anti-Bush bumper sticker on their way out.
As Demands for Energy Multiply, Windmill Farms Stage a Comeback --- Phalanxes 
of Whirring Turbines Could Be a Partial Antidote For Blackouts in California
By Jim Carlton
Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

01/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
B1
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

SAN FRANCISCO -- The rolling blackouts in the San Francisco Bay area are 
creating new demand for a long-overlooked source of power that is cheap, 
plentiful and close by -- the wind. 
One of the world's largest concentrations of wind turbines, some 7,000 of 
them, are situated in the Altamont Pass, which separates the bay from 
California's arid Central Valley. The windmills generate electricity at less 
than half the cost of natural-gas-generated power, which has been running as 
high as 15 cents to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour.
Passersby have for years poked fun at the windmills, which were built in the 
wake of the last energy crisis in the 1970s. Then, the state and federal 
government backed the plentiful power source with tax credits and price 
guarantees that proved lucrative to investors and provided the state with an 
alternate source of cheap electricity. But when natural-gas prices fell in 
the late 1980s, and the tax credits were pulled out, the windmill industry 
collapsed from 12 turbine manufacturers to one and most power companies 
turned back to cheap fossil fuels. 
Now, with California utilities struggling to keep the state lit, this 
alternative energy source is making a comeback as one, albeit slight, 
solution to the West's energy crisis. "It's not a full answer, but it's part 
of the answer," says Robert Morrison, vice president of renewable generation 
for "windmill farm" developer FPL Energy LLC, a unit of big energy provider 
FPL Group Inc., based in Juno Beach, Fla., which also owns Florida Power & 
Light Co. 
Indeed, as energy providers scramble for alternatives to fossil fuels like 
natural gas, which has soared in price, windmill farms are sprouting up from 
the plains of West Texas to the badlands of the Northwest's Columbia Gorge. 
There are 13,000 of the windmills in all -- 1,000 of them built over the past 
five years. 
On the Washington-Oregon border, FPL Energy is building a 470-windmill farm 
atop ridges overlooking the Columbia River. When completed by the end of this 
year it will be the world's biggest wind-generation plant, though its output 
of 300 megawatts of electricity will be only about half the capacity of a 
comparable coal or gas plant, industry officials say. And the so-called 
Stateline project is one of the first new wind farms that is expected to turn 
a profit without relying on government tax credits. 
By using newer technology, Stateline is likely to be far more efficient than 
wind farms of the past. While the windmills are far fewer in number than at 
places like Altamont Pass, where they are densely placed, they have bigger 
blades and can generate significantly more electricity. 
With the project coming online in the midst of the West's energy crunch, 
participants say the timing couldn't have been better. "We're lucky, and 
we're smart, in that we have been planning for wind energy the past five 
years," says Barrett Stambler, director of renewable business development for 
a unit of PacifiCorp, a Portland, Ore., company that has agreed to buy the 
power in its development agreement with FPL. 
Elsewhere, Enron Corp. has recently deployed about 200 windmills in Southern 
California and West Texas, along with 500 more in Minnesota and Iowa. Those 
come on top of the 2,000 windmills Enron has operated for several years in 
the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles. Also in Texas, Enron and some 
other companies are building wind farms that will generate about 700 
megawatts of power when completed this year, quadrupling that state's 
wind-generation capacity. 
"Wind indeed is ready for prime time," says Ralph Cavanagh, energy program 
director for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group 
based in New York. 
But wind isn't likely to displace oil and gas anytime soon. In California, 
where they are most abundant, wind farms account for roughly 1.5% of the 
state's electricity production, according to the American Wind Energy 
Association, an industry trade group in Washington, D.C. The group is pushing 
for federal legislation that could boost wind power to about 5% of the 
nation's overall power generation over time, from the current three-tenths of 
a percent. 
The intermittent nature of wind gusts means wind farms can never be as 
reliable as a traditional fuel source. But the flip side to that, say wind 
proponents, is that the wind farms are so easy to build -- essentially 
hoisting the towers and running cables to a substation -- that it takes only 
a year from start to finish to put one in operation. Coal and gas plants, by 
contrast, can take as long as five years to complete. 
And of the other major renewable energy sources -- solar, hydro, biomass 
(burning natural waste such as wood chips) and geothermal -- wind is seen by 
both the industry and environmentalists as the cheapest and greenest 
alternative. Both solar and biomass plants are costly, they say, while 
hydroelectrical dams are expensive and harmful to rivers. Geothermal plants, 
which pump hot water out of the ground, have drawn criticism in parts of the 
West for draining thermal springs -- some revered by native tribes. 
Windmills, by contrast, are praised by most environmentalists as virtually 
pristine energy sources with little impact on anything other than birds 
flying into the blades. The newer turbines' bigger blades turn more slowly, 
giving birds a better chance, industry officials say. With such advantages, 
93% of a $40 million fund allocated to alternative energy that California 
officials auctioned to power companies this month went to wind-generation 
projects. 
Until recent years, wind was a relatively dirty word in Western power 
circles. After a building boom in the 1980s, fueled by tax credits to make 
the machines, thousands of the metallic-bladed windmills popped up, offering 
utilities an alternative that was then only slightly more expensive than 
fossil fuels. But at the same time that the credits expired in the late 
1980s, prices of electricity generated by natural gas plunged to about three 
cents a kilowatt-hour from as high as 10 cents; the wind farms with their 
five-cents-a-kilowatt power became noncompetitive. 
The industry started crawling back in the early 1990s, after Congress 
reinstated tax incentives, this time tied to wind-energy production, not just 
to making the turbines. With other local incentives, such as long-term price 
guarantees in California, FPL, Enron and other energy producers increased 
their investment in the technology. 
PacifiCorp, for instance, bought a smaller 40-megawatt wind farm in Wyoming 
about five years ago as a training ground for expanded wind efforts. It 
learned a lesson: Don't select a site near already-jammed transmission lines 
-- as turned out to be the case in Wyoming because of the state's numerous 
coal and gas plants -- because it rules out growth. 
In seeking a home for its Stateline wind farm, PacifiCorp settled on the 
Columbia River area near Walla Walla, Wash., both because of abundant wind 
and the area's proximity to a less-congested part of the West's transmission 
grid. Its partner, FPL, had built a smaller, 25-megawatt wind farm there four 
years ago. 
Unlike in places like the Altamont Pass, where thousands of windmills created 
an eyesore in the opinion of many, residents of the Walla Walla area were 
mostly supportive of having fewer turbines, spaced comfortably apart. There 
is enough room for landowners to continue operating their wheat farms around 
the machines. 
"Plus this supports our values of doing sustainable, `green' building 
wherever we can," says Peter Harvey, chief financial officer of Whitman 
College in Walla Walla, which is leasing out some of its wheat land for the 
windmills. 
The cost of wind energy from Stateline is between three cents and five cents 
a kilowatt-hour -- compared with as much as 20 cents from natural gas. The 
project's timing is pefect. Terry Hudgens, PacifiCorp's senior vice president 
of power supply, says the company's customers are pleading for power. "They 
just want the energy," he says.
International
World Watch
Compiled by David I. Oyama

01/26/2001
The Wall Street Journal
A10
(Copyright (c) 2001, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

ASIA/PACIFIC 
Indian Utility May Miss Enron Payment 
India's cash-strapped Maharashtra State Electricity Board was expected to 
miss a deadline last night for paying 1.59 billion rupees ($34.3 million) to 
Dabhol Power, a unit of Enron of the U.S., for electricity purchased in 
December. It again raised the possibility of Enron invoking letters of credit 
or guarantees provided by the state and federal governments to force payment. 
The Maharashtra state government said it hadn't yet considered a request by 
the electricity board for funds to pay the bill, and didn't expect to do so 
until next week. Dabhol Power sells its entire output to the electricity 
board. 
Houston Chronicle Working Column
L.M. Sixel

01/26/2001
KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News: Houston Chronicle - Texas
Copyright (C) 2001 KRTBN Knight Ridder Tribune Business News; Source: World 
Reporter (TM)

ENRON RATING SETUP IRKS MANY WORKERS: Tongues are wagging at Enron Corp., and 
it's not because of the bonuses they're expecting next month. 
Employees are irate about a new performance-review ranking system that pits 
them against each other.
Under the system, nicknamed "rank and yank," employees will be put in one of 
five categories: 5 percent will be identified as "superior," 30 percent will 
be labeled "excellent," 30 percent will be called "strong," 20 percent will 
be labeled "satisfactory" and 15 percent will be called "needs improvement" 
or "issues." 
An insider said "needs improvement" means "you have one leg hanging out the 
window." And "issues" is Enron lingo for "you're gone." 
The rankings, whose names reportedly took Enron officials hours to come up 
with, are not based just on performance. 
Instead, they compare employee against employee. 
"It is possible, therefore, for someone to perform at the same or higher 
level compared to prior periods, yet receive a lower rating for the current 
period if other employees' performance raised the bar," according to a memo 
from Chief of Staff Steven Kean and Executive Vice President Cindy Olson that 
was distributed this month. 
While employees are competing against each other for ratings, they're also 
expected to be team players, according to the memo. 
The problem, according to someone familiar with the new system, is the 
horse-trading that goes on when the rankings are divided up. 
Managers trade rankings like baseball cards, explained the insider, offering 
to downgrade one employee if they can get a better rating for another 
employee. 
An employee's ranking is more a function of the negotiating skills of the 
manager he is working for, the insider said. 
Olson, who's over human resources and community relations, said no 
horsetrading is going on. The rankings, due out this week, aren't set in 
stone, she said. Only 9 percent of employees were rated in the bottom 
category while 6 to 7 percent were labeled superior, she said. 
But Olson said she can see how employees might be worried about the prospect 
of bargaining. 
She speculated that one reason employees might worry is because it's a new 
system for about 60 percent of Enron's employees. In years past, only the 
wholesale energy services group was ranked this way. 
Some human resource managers expressed surprise that Enron, which is known 
for hiring superstars, apparently feels that it must get rid of so many 
employees -- or at least put them on notice that they're not doing well. 
It doesn't say much about the confidence of your recruiting system if you're 
getting rid of 10 to 15 percent of your work force each year, said a human 
resource manager in Houston who asked to remain anonymous. 
Some people, as smart and talented as they are, just don't fit into Enron's 
culture, Olson said. It's a company that doesn't tell people what to do; you 
have to know what adds value, she said. Some folks just have a hard time in 
that environment. 
After thinking about it for a moment, Olson added that maybe Enron's 
recruiters aren't doing a good enough job weeding out the people who wouldn't 
do well in an entrepreneurial environment. 
Forced ranking systems were popular several years ago. But they fell out of 
favor, in part because they were seen as damaging employee motivation. 
Several years ago, Houston Lighting & Power put in a forced ranking system, 
dividing all employees into four groups, with "1" the top group and "4" the 
lowest. Employees were so angry with the system that some work crews had 
T-shirts printed: "Don't ask me -- I'm a 3." 
Olson said she doesn't see a problem with motivation. People like to know how 
they stand and will work hard to reach the top category, she said. 
But many of the employees -- at least the ones who rate above satisfactory -- 
won't know how they're rated. Managers don't have to reveal the ratings. 
And as for figuring out what it takes to be superior? You've got to reinvent 
your job, add new business lines or create something totally new. 
"Employees understand that when it's explained to them," Olson said. 
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