Wendy Sherman: “I might add, in describing the bill that we both support, it is indeed temporary; just a couple of years. It is being…”

“I might add, in describing the bill that we both support, it is indeed temporary; just a couple of years. It is being called price caps. It is actually something that is less opposed than price caps by those that oppose it. It is cost-plus-profit regulation. So it is not like we turn to every producer and say you cannot sell for more than $50 a megawatt. If you have a wind farm that was expensive to build and it cost you $80 a megawatt, 8 cents a kilowatt, we will let you sell for $90 or $100. So it is cost plus profit and that cost includes depreciation of your equipment. So it is a fair price for each producer, plus a generous profit. Also the bill does call for investigation. We do need to investigate what has happened and how we have been gouged. I would point out that the California Public Utilities Commission has done an investigation already. Not that we do not need to investigate more. They concluded that, yes, supply was withheld in order to move up the price. There is another element to this bill and another element of the crisis that I do want to mention, and that is the natural gas crisis. Now, throughout North America the price of natural gas has more than doubled, and that doubling is tough on many people around the country; and yet it is hard to say that that results from monopoly power.”