From another bboard LINK If they (california) are serious about solving their energy problems, then they need to start by overturning this piece of garbage!

California Senate Passes 100 Percent Electric Profits Tax (AP) -- California would impose a 100 percent "windfall profits tax" on high-priced electricity if a bill approved by the Senate Monday becomes law. In essence, that would impose a state cap on soaring power prices in the absence of the hard federal cap state officials have been seeking for months from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. "Obviously the best way to enact a rate cap is for FERC to do its job. They have refused to listen to our pleas," said Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena. "We're faced, as the state of California, faced with solving the problem ourselves."

The bill, which now goes to the Assembly, would impose the 100 percent tax on any power priced over a baseline price of $80 a megawatt hour -- a fraction of what electricity has sometimes sold for in recent months.

The measure gives the California Public Utilities Commission 60 days to revise the $80 price threshold. Companies could exceed the baseline price if they can prove the must to recoup their costs and a "reasonable" profit. It does not affect existing power contracts.

"We ought to be laying out a welcome mat for these power generators. What we're laying down is a spike pad," objected Sen. Ray Haynes, R-Riverside.

"It sends a message that California is not a good place to do business," said Brian O'Neel, a spokesman for generator Mirant.

However, legislative supporters and consumer groups said generators who want to offer electricity at a fair price and profit would still sell into the state.

"This is absolutely imperative for the survival -- short-term -- of California's economy," said Sen. Joseph Dunn, D-Garden Grove. Without some emergency action to rein in skyrocketing prices, he said, "we will be economically dead."

However, Dunn agreed with opponents who said the measure should be amended to change the way the windfall tax would be distributed.

As adopted by the Senate on a 25-12 vote, the measure would return it to taxpayers, which opponents said would give the money even to residents of municipal utility districts who have not suffered the same high prices as have those in investor-owned utilities.

Gov. Gray Davis has said he is amenable to signing a windfall profits law.

The Senate action came the same day an Assembly committee advanced a bill that would cap the price of electricity at $60 per megawatt hour, subject to review by the PUC. Anything up to $90 per megawatt hour would be taxed 50 percent; up to $120 per megawatt hour would be taxed 70 percent; and anything over $120 per megawatt hour would be taxed 90 percent.

"We have been bleeding the budget dry because of outrageous prices that are being charged on the open market for electricity," said Assemblywoman Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, shortly before the Revenue and Tax Committee advanced her bill to the Appropriations Committee.

The windfall profits tax was the second effort Monday to rein in high energy prices.

Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg and Senate President Pro Tem John Burton said they plan to sue in federal court early next week, alleging the FERC is violating federal law by not imposing a hard cap on prices.

Current prices are "unconscionable," said Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. "It's just absolutely destabilizing California."

The suit will ask that prices be capped and overcharges be reimbursed, said Burton, D-San Francisco. FERC officials could not be reached to comment Saturday or Monday. However, legal experts said the legislative leaders will have a tough time winning their lawsuit.

Their attorney, Joseph Cotchett, acknowledged it "is a very difficult case," and said he plans to include other electricity consumers and possibly California cities to overcome objections that the Legislature doesn't have grounds to sue.

Cotchett said a recent federal appellate ruling that the city of San Diego can join in a lawsuit against FERC means that "any consumer that purchases power in California" can sue.

FERC has said it is already acting to rein in high power prices, but California can't afford to wait, Cotchett said. "This state can't put up with the carnage."

That's a tough argument to win, said Stephen Angle, a FERC attorney for 14 years who now represents power generators on non-California issues.

Procedures to appeal FERC rulings in the courts exist, but asking a federal judge to overrule an independent regulatory body in a pending case isn't one of them, Angle said.

Despite the challenges, Cotchett said, other Western states are watching the suit and may join in.

5.07.01, 6:59p

http://www.kfwb.com/news/local/l050713.html Link to story

-- Rob McCarthy (celtic64@mindspring.com), May 08, 2001

Answers

Sorry, messed up the links pretty good! Not a fan of the Newcastle Football Club, I follow the Glasgow Celtic of the Scottish Premier League. Let me try again....

thread to thread link

and to the story itself...link

-- Rob (celtic64@mindspring.com), May 08, 2001.

Ha ha ha ha, what idiots. Their main problem is lack of supply, so now they aim to eliminate their suppliers!!! What a bunch of brain farts.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), May 08, 2001.

dumbya in action. sure glad we voted for him, idiots.

-- dumbya (dumbya@and.dumber), May 08, 2001.

dumbya could be a moron or a genius, but this is a wholly Californian law, passed by the brain addled.

-- libs are idiots (moreinterpretation@ugly.com), May 10, 2001.