Bob Filner: “as our colleagues are going off to their home districts for the weekend, I want to remind them all of the crisis that is…”

“as our colleagues are going off to their home districts for the weekend, I want to remind them all of the crisis that is going on in my district in San Diego, California. They are the first city in California and, perhaps, the first in the Nation that has experienced full deregulation of its electricity prices. The cost of electricity to the average consumer, small business person, big business person has doubled, tripled in 3 or 4 months alone. I want to remind my colleagues about what is going on in San Diego because San Diego is the harbinger of things to come for the rest of California and possibly the Nation. We are the poster children for what happens when deregulation of a basic commodity like electricity takes place in a monopoly situation. Those who control the commodity can charge whatever price they can get. In fact, deregulation and the restructuring of the electricity industry is so flawed in California that electricity producers are allowed to charge wholesale prices four to five times higher than they were just a year ago. This is criminal, Mr. Speaker, and I use the word advisably. Energy producers are making obscene profits on the back of our senior citizens, our schools, our hospitals, our libraries, our businesses. Our whole economy in California is threatened.”