Wendy Sherman: “The Vice President made some remarks recently that have become rather famous. He said conservation might be a personal…”

“The Vice President made some remarks recently that have become rather famous. He said conservation might be a personal virtue but it was not the basis, not a sufficient basis, for a national energy policy. I think we can only respond that degrading the environment and maximizing energy company prices might be good cash generation politics, but it is not the basis, not the sufficient basis, for a comprehensive energy policy. I want to talk a little bit about how California is being hurt because we do not have rate regulation on the wholesale generation of electricity. Technically what is being called for is not price caps but technically what we are asking for is temporary cost-based price regulation, basically the same system that existed in this country for electric utilities, privately owned electric utilities for 100 years, when America went from a rural society to the world's only superpower. Now, these lack of price regulations are responsible and will increasingly be responsible for blackouts in California.”