Bob Filner: “California is being bled dry by a cartel of energy wholesalers. We are being charged at a rate of $3 billion a month…”

“California is being bled dry by a cartel of energy wholesalers. We are being charged at a rate of $3 billion a month, and the State is purchasing that because the utilities are bankrupt. Our first job is to get down those prices. We have legislation which virtually all of the Democrats and some Republicans from the States of California, Washington, and Oregon are supporting, which establishes cost-based rates for electricity in the western region. That will bring down the prices and stop the hemorrhaging, while the governor is programmed to build new plants and conserve more has its effect. We must bring down those prices. This Congress has refused to act and is going home for its Memorial Day recess without doing that. We have to move in addition, for the long range, and it really comes back to the same problem, because these cartels will not do the research for renewable resources, for sustainable energy. We could in California be pretty self-sufficient with photovoltaic cells if we brought down the cost and purchased in mass. We have to do more work in that.”