Government Deregulation

Talk is supposed to be cheap, but it keeps getting more expensive for millions of California customers because of a 2006 regulatory change designed to do the opposite. AT&T Inc. recently jacked up the price of call waiting, caller ID and other stand-alone features, the third rate hike in the last year. Those small fee increases add up fast, and they might only get worse. The hardest hit seem to be the elderly and the poor, who are most reliant on basic phone service.

California utility regulators forged ahead Thursday with a controversial plan that could clear the way for another try at deregulating the state's electricity market -- a concept last tested in the years leading up to the devastating 2000-01 energy crisis. State law prohibits the Public Utilities Commission from reinstating competition between the state's major utilities and unregulated power providers before 2015.

When Congress voted last week to bail out Wall Street banks and investment houses, members were also indirectly voting to repair damage lawmakers themselves had caused during a decades-long era of deregulation. As the blame game moves into high gear in Washington, there seem to be few winners. Already under scrutiny are lawmakers from both political parties, Presidents George W.

With memories of California's millennial energy meltdown fading, a top utility regulator and some businesses are maneuvering to resurrect a key element of the state's infamous electricity deregulation law. That effort -- and fears about fiddling with the state's delicate power grid -- are sure to amp up political tensions between the constitutionally independent California Public Utilities Commission and the Democrat-controlled state Legislature.

Almost a decade after the utility deregulation fad swept through Montana, the state is learning the hard way it isn't easy to rebuild the broken pieces of a stable, publicly regulated utility once it's gone. California got all the headlines for its post-deregulation fiasco in 2000-01 that was topped by energy market manipulation, but it's Montana that some point to as the poster child for deregulation gone awry. Montana was seen as the only low-cost energy state talked into deregulation.

Deregulation of wholesale electricity markets in the U.S. has resulted in "periods of substantially higher prices in some areas of the country" and a patchwork of electricity markets, according to a congressional report released Wednesday. Citing market manipulation in the West during 2000 and 2001 and rising power prices nationwide, the Government Accountability Office said in a report that the deregulation of power markets had been a negative experience for some people.

Temperatures soar to record highs. Power grid operators declare emergencies. And politicians argue over energy policy. It must be springtime in California. The two-part question on the table is basically the same as it's been since the energy crisis of 2000-01: Should the state return to the days when heavily regulated utilities generated and sold power at government-controlled rates?

Edison International Chief Executive John Bryson said Thursday that "further experiments" with deregulating California's electricity markets could be disastrous for the state. "That would be like playing Russian roulette with the state's electricity system," said Bryson, speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting in Long Beach.

A federal court ruling Friday has put the White House in an election-year quandary: Should it back big local phone companies in their drive to undo regulations or side with consumer groups by supporting a plan they say will bring more choices and lower prices? The Bush administration had hoped the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington would head off such a dilemma by agreeing to give SBC Communications Inc., Verizon Communications Inc.

A bill aimed at heading off another energy crisis by once again revamping California's electricity grid received a cautious boost Tuesday from a key Senate panel. The measure -- sponsored by Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) with the strong backing of Edison International -- is shaping up to be the most important overhaul of the state's power system since the now infamous deregulation law of 1996.