Energy crisis concerns delegates

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press April 1, 2001.

By LISA WAHLA
Valley Press Staff Writer

ANAHEIM - Though this weekend's state Democratic Convention was designed to celebrate the party in power in California, power of a different sort took over the agenda.

The state's energy crisis continued to grab attention from lawmakers and average delegates this weekend, especially as Gov. Gray Davis has received increasing criticism over how he has handled it. Some of that criticism has come from outspoken Democrats.

Speaker after speaker at Saturday's general session at the Anaheim Convention Center vowed to work toward a solution, while Davis himself defended his policies and blamed Republicans for the situation.

The deregulation legislation at the heart of the crisis was authored by a Republican, approved by a Republican Assembly and signed into law by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson, Davis told about 2,000 devoted Democrats. He tried to avoid the large-scale rate increases approved by the state Public Utilities Commission last week, but the last-resort measure was justified - for now. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt said the Democratic leaders in Congress are watching the problem closely and have sent a team to have hearings on the matter.

"We want to tell California that we care and we're going to try to come up with some sensible answers at the federal level," Gephardt told the Valley Press at a Beverly Hills fund-raiser Friday night.

Gephardt was critical of President George W. Bush's more hands-off approach to dealing with the state's crisis."That shouldn't be our view. What Bush has said, basically, is it's your problem," he said. "We don't think it's California's problem alone. We think the country has got to be involved."

"One of the things we've got to look at is whether we have a proper national infrastructure for moving electricity around the country. I don't think the problems in California are limited to California - we're going to see it everywhere."

At the same fund-raiser, Congresswoman Maxine Waters agreed that the federal government must take a larger role to prevent California's woes from spreading. "It is going to happen all over this country," she said. "We have to get involved in energy policy, in how we are going to produce energy for the country, and the federal government is going to have to appropriate some money.

"Rather than a $1.6 trillion tax cut, I'd rather have a big savings so we can subsidize energy costs until we can get new power plants built and come up with new sources of energy," said Waters, who recently traveled to the Valley to speak to Democrats.

Waters had harsher words for Davis, who, she said, should have done more earlier.

"Personally, I am not pleased with the way the governor has handled this crisis," Waters said. "I think he fiddled while Rome burned, a little bit. Instead of making some early decisions, he made political decisions, trying not to make enemies. I think that we're now in a position where money is hemorrhaging out of the budget to pay for energy on the spot market, and this cannot keep up."

The rate increases will "hurt our commerce an awful lot."