California Government Agencies

When Chairman S. David Freeman gavels the new state Public Power Authority into session today, he will launch an agency that is the centerpiece of California's plan to tame its volatile electricity market. Conceived during the winter energy crisis, the five-member California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority has emerged with broad powers and the authority to spend $5 billion to ensure that the exorbitant price spikes and blackouts of last winter and spring never occur again.

One is a new mother whose infant son requires around-the-clock medical attention. The other is a retired police officer who needs a specialist nearby to help treat a chronic illness.

Gov. Gray Davis on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based application for the California Healthy Families program to boost enrollment in the state's insurance plan for children of low-income working families.

Hackers vandalized Web sites Monday operated by the California Energy Commission and Secretary of State Bill Jones, posting anti-American statements on the sites and in one case a picture of a Chinese flag.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled that the California Coastal Commission is unconstitutional in the way it is set up, a decision that could significantly weaken the agency empowered nearly 30 years ago to protect the state's most precious resource.

In a narrow gray conference room not far from the Capitol, a team of state workers is spending $2 million an hour on a mission scrupulously hidden from public view.

In a measure that could open the way for California to own power plants, the state Senate on Tuesday voted to create a state public power authority that would generate electricity and sell it at or near cost to consumers.