We all need to be very careful in what we wish for. Please take a close look at California's electricity shortage. It is due in no small part to doo gooder (see overzealous environmentalists) intentions and Government meddling. The Californians have not been building power plants. Supply has not kept up with demand and they are taking it in the shorts right now. I drive quite a bit in my job higher Gas price hits me right in the wallet. I don't like them either but please don't ask the Government to fix it. That is not the kind of help I need.

I have kids that live in CA, and they do not see the history of deregulation and subsequent woes at all like FOXnews. We have posters from CA and I would like to here from them. One of my kids is Orange county Repub and would love to use the issue but says they can't and will lose even more if they try.

IMO California's blackouts are at least partially caused by utility companies that are being run by people who can't really afford to...kind of like the Royals.

If I'm not mistaken, don't most electricty-producing facilities use oil or natural gas to make their product?

If so, the blackouts are actually being caused by the same companies that are raping American consumers.

Most of the electricity in my neck of the woods is produced by coal. The town in which I live has its own power plant. I don`t think many plants use crude to produce electricity.

Yes, here in California there are all sorts of issues with energy production...

a) restrictions on offshore drilling
b) restrictions on drilling on land
c) restrictions on refinery operations
d) mandated chemical additives to gasoline
e) additional taxes on energy
f) eco-wackos and nimbys fighting against all efforts to increase production
g) mega-refinery mergers resulting in fewer refineries and higher prices
h) mega-oil company mergers resulting in fewer oil companies shifting oil away from California and driving up prices
i) only one natural gas pipeline into Southern California controlled by El Paso Natural Gas (or some name like that)
j) lobbyists for El Paso wining and dining Ca. legislators to prevent add'l pipelines from being built
k) energy "de-regulation" which forbids long term contracts
l) energy "de-regulation" which allows the parent corporations to sell electricity produced in Ca. to out-of-state buyers, thereby decreasing arbitrarily the amount of electricity available in Ca. and driving up prices...

Do you want more?????

What's the difference between the causes of the energy shortage in California, socialist price and production controls, and the causes of the toilet paper shortage's in the U.S.S.R.? Socialist policies guaranteed Soviet consumers would not get gouged for toilet paper. The only problem was socialist policies also guaranteed there would be very little toilet paper available.
Socialist tax and regulatory policies combined with socialist judicial activism guarantee semi-monopoly statis for large corporations in a marketplace where you can only compete if you can afford an army of accountants and lawyers. Just like socialist policies in the U.S.S.R. guaranteed monopoly statis, and therefore miserable quality and availability, for government controlled businesses. If you don't like a socialist economy, including shortages and monopolies, you should be trying to end socialist tax and regulatory policies and socialist judicial activism which makes it impossible for new businesses to compete against the large corporations protected by the enormous expense of complying with socialist tax and regulatory policies and dealing with socialist judicial activism.

Maybe if there was a difference between the California Republican/Socialist party and the California Democrat/Socialist party, the California Republican/Socialist party would object to socialist policies. Maybe if there was a free press, instead of a U.S.S.R. type socialist press totally devoted to protecting the Republicrat (Demopublican)/Socialist Party, we wouldn't have the same problems with energy that people in the U.S.S.R. had with toilet paper.

Thank you Fly.

Oleman had asked ealier what law banned the building of refineries. Rather than a refienery or oil exploration project bleeding from the wound of a single law. It instead dies from the nicks of the countless regulations that you've in part detailed.

The libs and eco-wackos are an insidious but intellegent lot. Rather than instill a single 'thou shalt not' they instead layer their 'thou shalt nots' in thin but deep levels. But with the same, if not worse, cumulative effect.

Ck-in
Name me one little burg in Kansas or Ok or Texas that does not want a refinery and its jobs. Conoco just down the street said they didn't want to build here for they liked the profit margins of #2.00 gas. The profits they would use for drilling for more oil for their new third world refinery.

As for CA, happy to build a refinery here and ship daily. I bet I could get entire counties to be dedicated to refineries West of here with $2.00 wheat the norm.

You guys want to buy my bridge.

Name me one tiny "burg" anywhere in America which does not have a tiny minority of "NIMBY"s who can use the socialist tool of judicial activism to thwart or vastly increase the cost and feasability of any project.

Oleman, like the blind marksman, you keep shooting but fail to find the target.

It <b>doesn't matter</b> what some 'burg', interesting choice of words by the way, wants. The eco-wackos and their Clinton accomplices for the last eight years have made it impossible at a federal level to drill or build. Between environmental impact statements, EPA regs, Labor regs, FTC regs and regs from <b>any</b> of the alphabet soup of guvment we have, a new exploration or refinery project simply isn't feasible. Then lets toss in the fuel additives that are fed mandated and raise the cost of gas, while corroding piplines. And let us not forget any of the tree huggers that would love nothing better than to file a civil suit on behalf of the 3 footed, left eared, fur-bearing, barking butterfly that just happens to live where ever any new project is planned.

The high cost of gas my friend is largely self-inflicted. But in typical fashion we all cry foul, blame 'big whatever' and look for guvment to fix a problem that in part is guvment caused.

If it is impossible to build refineries as you all hopelessly project, how is Cheney going to build those 1300 he proposes?

Gee I don't know Oleman. Do you suppose the Vice President might act in conjunction with the President and Congress to rollback some of the regulatory sillieness that currently prevails? Thus making it easier to find new oil and then refine it so us, the people, can use it.

I know it's a wild, conservative, capitalistic thought. I'm sure a socialistic, environmentaly concerned, liberal would know much more about it. They always seem to if you ask them. Or even if you don't ask them.

Being a Cali native, we've seen our share of problems when it comes to basic necessities.

There was the severe drought that caused neighbors to physically confront you if you dared wash your car more than once a month.

We've got the Russian roulette earthquakes that are always good for some laughs.

We're the only state in the union with open borders to Mexico. (well, maybe Texas has that clause too.).

We've seen our electric bills put a fire in our shorts to exchange those 100 watt bulbs for eye straining 40 watters.

Now the gasoline lynching has compromised our vacation plans until 2005.

AND we still have the Oakland Raider fans to remind us of what our horrible public school systems is producing on an annual basis.

Other than that, life is good.....

Speaking of CA
There is an AP story on El Paso Natural Gas, which is the Bush "buddy" in this mess much like China and Clinton, that from their Southwest source of natural gas they manipulatied the price upwards by almost 3000% by selling and reselling it through affiliated companies before it was sold to generate the major portion of CA's electrical energy.

The FERC, the federal agency responsible for oversight, declined to attend the hearings.

Price fixing scams cannot exist in a free market, only in a marketplace skewed by socialist tax and regulatory policies and socialist judicial activism policies.