Utilities California

The state of California filed a $179.4-million claim Monday seeking repayment for power purchased for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. customers in the first two months after PG&E filed for bankruptcy. California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said the claim covers purchases made by the state Department of Water Resources between April 6--the date of PG&E's bankruptcy filing--and May 31.

Political guru Richie Ross advises legislators to run if they see any bill that looks like a utility bailout. Don't touch it even if the house leader begs or the governor berates. " 'Bailout' is a bad word," Ross says. "Voters don't feel they've been treated fairly by utilities. They figure utilities have brought it all on themselves. . . . 'Bailout' to the voters means 'we pay'--no matter how it's structured." Voters--if that means taxpayers--do not pay, really.

You knew it would come to this. You knew their uneasy union was bound to crack. One politician is pure volcanic emotion, the other a public portrait of cool control. One man is blunt and uncensored, prone to spouting expletives. The other picks his words cautiously, ever wary of political faux pas. They are the oddest of odd couples, united by circumstance and party affiliation but little else. And this month the shaky detente between California's two most powerful leaders--Democrats Gov.

Southern California Edison creditors said Friday that the company should call a meeting to begin work on a joint plan to return the insolvent utility to fiscal health, a process they believe can start without a bankruptcy filing. Creditors said they are reluctant to file an involuntary-bankruptcy petition against SCE until the state Legislature makes one last effort to agree on a rescue plan. Additionally, the creditors said they want to see how a plan unveiled by Pacific Gas & Electric Co.

With a rare public split among Gov. Gray Davis' appointees, the California Public Utilities Commission abruptly postponed a vote Thursday on a crucial step toward the state's planned sale of bonds to recoup billions in power costs. The commission did vote to approve two other long-debated changes in energy policy.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. unveiled a plan Thursday to emerge from bankruptcy that it says would allow it to pay creditors in full without an increase in customers' electric rates. The reorganization plan, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco, would split the utility from its parent, PG&E Corp., to form two separate businesses. The reorganization, expected to be completed by the end of 2002, calls for the Northern California utility to use cash and new borrowing to erase $13.

Gov. Gray Davis acknowledged Tuesday that he faces long odds in his effort to persuade lawmakers to rescue troubled Southern California Edison, but vowed to present a new plan when the Legislature returns next month for the special session he has demanded. While Davis did not offer details about the new legislation, the Democratic governor said he expects that whatever its details, Edison will have the right to review and agree to it.

"We're going to get it done," Gov. Gray Davis pledges. "We will find a way. One way or the other, we'll get it done." It is a bill to rescue Southern Cal Edison from looming bankruptcy. Such a measure died in the state Senate early Saturday just before the 2001 legislative session ended. Crusty Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco) wouldn't even allow a floor vote. "We didn't want to embarrass the governor," he proclaimed, contending the bill had only seven supporters.

Now that the state Legislature has failed to pass a bill to rescue Southern California Edison, the state's second-largest electricity utility lingers in a dangerous limbo between nervous creditors and a rebellious state Senate that is refusing to back the governor's plan to repair Edison's finances. Gov. Gray Davis late Friday told lawmakers to return in two weeks for a special session devoted only to solving Edison's financial troubles and getting the state out of the power-buying business.

Assembly Republicans called Thursday for the resignation of S. David Freeman, the former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power who now heads the state's new public power authority. The lawmakers cited a recent audit, detailed Monday in The Times, showing the DWP's profits on sales of electricity to other utilities averaged 56% last year. That is much higher than the 15% return DWP officials have for months said they earned.