WASHINGTON — California officials plan to submit a pile of newly discovered evidence Monday that they say will prove that price-gouging by power companies during the 2000-01 energy crisis was far more widespread than previously revealed.
The filing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concludes an extraordinary, 103-day effort by California to uncover new evidence of energy price manipulation and to sketch the most-detailed picture to date of what happened during the chaotic months of rolling blackouts and exploding energy prices.
Most of the evidence is being filed confidentially with federal regulators, who are scrambling to complete their own investigation of the Western energy crisis by a March 31 deadline. Interviews with state regulators and utility officials suggest that California parties have collected a voluminous record documenting a broad pattern of price manipulation.
Those people say they can now prove what was first suggested -- but not documented -- in confidential Enron Corp. memos released last year: that a wide range of companies created shortages to boost profits during the energy crisis.
The filing, which exceeded 1,000 pages in a recent draft, is said to detail examples of power withholding by generators, various techniques to manipulate prices and even cases of collusion between energy traders and municipal utilities.
"We now know what we assumed was the case," said John Bryson, chairman and chief executive of Edison International, a party to the filing. "There was very, very pervasive manipulation -- unlawful manipulation -- of markets, during the power crisis."
During the energy crisis, California officials complained that federal regulators refused to investigate claims of market manipulation. Then last May, Enron -- under new management following its collapse -- released to federal regulators memos describing how the company rigged shortages through trading schemes with nicknames like "Death Star" and "Fat Boy."
The Enron memos said other companies adopted similar ploys but provided no details.
The new state filing is said to include some transcripts of taped conversations in which energy traders for other companies described their methods. But much of the material is an analysis of data, which California officials maintain fills out the picture of market manipulation.
