Duke came to us. They volunteered to come to us and made a number of suggestions to some people on my staff. I don't know how I would characterize them, but there have been some discussions going back and forth between Duke and members of my staff.
Why? Because we're very well down this process as it is - flawed as it is - and we're counting on getting more power plants on line by the end of 2003 so we have a surplus of power.
Well, we're trying to patch and fix and put a cast on a broken system here. You can call it what you want, but we'll continue to purchase power in a private market.
Well, there's no question that the law passed in 1996 was flawed. It deregulated the wholesale market, meaning the price that the utilities had to pay energy companies for power, but not the retail market.
We started focusing on this in earnest late summer and early fall. I can build more power plants. In the 12 years before us, not a single plant of major consequence was built.
We believe you will not have to pay more than the current rate structure proposes - which is, for 50 percent of the public, nothing; for another 25 percent, only a 10 percent increase; and for the remaining 25 percent, a 34 percent increase.
There's no question that California, in the last three or four years, has been privileged to add disproportionately to the economic growth of America, and to contribute to its technological productivity.
So it was flawed in that it didn't require California to have a first claim on the power plants. It deregulated part of the market, but not all of the market.
Now, in the space of a year, we've spent 450 percent more for power than we did the year before, and bought essentially the same amount of power. This year, that number's likely to go up. That can't go on forever and have us continue to be the economic engine for America.
Meanwhile, people have to join us and fight back against the federal government that has dropped the ball, that is in bed with these energy companies, that wants them to make more money than they've made before.
I know that Duke made a number of demands, including that the attorney general drop its investigation. We have no intention of asking the attorney general to do that.
Here is my general approach to the energy companies. You have already charged the utilities a 50 percent credit penalty for the power they were buying from you. You're charging us a penalty. You're not going to get two bites of the apple here.
I don't know why they're doing it. I have to assume that their motives are positive, not negative. But they don't understand the severity of the problem in this state.
There are so many scenarios here. We tried to prepare for the worst summer in 40 years and build assumptions based on that. We're preparing for the worst, but we're hoping for the best. And I've told people the end is in sight.
