Henry Waxman: “the majority is proposing the biggest change to our Nation's electricity laws since the 1930s. Unfortunately, they do…”

“the majority is proposing the biggest change to our Nation's electricity laws since the 1930s. Unfortunately, they do this while ignoring the corporate abuses that we have seen over the last few years. Let me tell the Members, those of us from California have seen these abuses in a major way. By some accounts, California has lost $40 billion due to energy company manipulation and FERC inaction, and the State will never likely be made whole. Deregulating the energy companies further when they have acted so irresponsibly in the past makes little sense to those of us in the West, and it is something the rest of the country ought not to invite upon their ratepayers. A national energy bill should ensure that what happened in California never happens again. This bill makes it more likely. The energy companies argue that what happened in California and other States was simply an insufficient supply combined with a bad State law. Well, it was a bad State law, but they are not telling us the whole picture. We now have proof that companies intentionally mapped the electricity markets to increase prices. The remedy for corporate fraud is vigorous government supervision. Lax regulation, which this bill would provide, can lead to rampant price-gouging, as California experienced during its crisis. But this bill moves towards deregulating the energy industry and does so without adding needed protections.”