Message-ID: <29020734.1075851651224.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 16:50:07 -0700 (PDT) From: foothillservices@mindspring.com To: foothillservices@mindspring.com Subject: Final Agenda for Friday WPTF General Meeting on October 5 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-From: Gary Ackerman X-To: foothillservices@mindspring.com X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \Dasovich, Jeff (Non-Privileged)\Dasovich, Jeff\Inbox X-Origin: DASOVICH-J X-FileName: Dasovich, Jeff (Non-Privileged).pst Folks,

Senator Joe Dunn will be one of our keynote speakers on Friday, October 5.  To better understand Joe's role in California, see the article below by Jessica Berthold of the Dow Jones Newswire.

Our agenda will be as follows:
 


Continental Breakfast 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Call to Order and Opening Remarks by WPTF Chair, Curtis Kebler 9:00 a.m.
Elements of a Super RTO by Ed Kee, PA Consulting, 9:15 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
Round Robin Introduction of Attendees 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
The Way Things Are by John Dizard, 11:15 p.m. to 12:15 p.m.
Lunch
Keynote Speaker: California Senator Joe Dunn 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
All Members Meeting (and guests) 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Adjourn at 4:00 p.m.



Mr. Ed Kee of PA Consulting is an expert on FERC's RTO policy, and his remarks will be very timely.  Ed is based in PA's Washington D.C. office, and he will discuss how the super RTO's will work, and provide us a view point from "inside the beltway", i.e., FERC speak. Mr. Kee was formerly at PHB, with client engagements related to electricity industry restructuring and privatization.

John Dizard has been writing on financial markets, economics, and political economy for thirty years. He also has worked for Wall Street firms as well as private investment companies.  He has written extensively
on central banking, international debt markets,  energy and communications markets, and distressed and bankrupt securities. He has written for a range of general interest and financial magazines and newspapers, including Forbes, Fortune,  Institutional Investor, the New York Post, and the New York Observer. Presently he is a regular columnist
for the Financial Times, and is writing a feature story on the California energy crisis for Harper's Magazine.

If you haven't contacted Barb Ennis yet to make a reservation, then by all means please do so.  Otherwise she has no way to plan the luncheon. Barb's phone number is 402-468-4966, and her e-mail address is baennis@earthlink.net.

See you on Friday.

gba

=======================================

Calif Senate Panel Probes Officials' Role In Power Costs

 Updated: Friday, September 28,
 2001 09:10 AM ET
 

 By Jessica Berthold

 Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

 (This article was originally published Thursday.)

 LOS ANGELES (Dow Jones)--A California Senate committee will
 depose former board members and managers of the state's wholesale
 power market operator next week as part of an investigation into
 whether those officials collaborated with suppliers to increase electricity
 prices in the state, the committee's chairman said.

 The investigation by the Senate Select Committee To Investigate Price
 Manipulation centers on an emergency request filed with federal
 regulators last December to lift a $250 per megawatt-hour price cap on
 the market run by the California Independent System Operator.

                                 The Federal Energy
                                 Regulatory Commission
                                 agreed to lift the cap three
                                 hours after receiving the
                                 request, which was filed by
                                 ISO Chief Executive Terry
                                 Winter.

                                 Committee Chairman Sen. Joe
                                 Dunn, D-Santa Ana, said
                                 Wednesday the price cap was
                                 the state's "last line of
                                 defense" against runaway
                                 wholesale electricity prices.
                                 Within three days of the cap's
                                 being lifted, wholesale prices
                                 had nearly tripled to
                                 $700/MWh, the beginning of
 months of extremely high prices that marked the worst of the state's
 electricity crisis, he said.

 Winter, who remains in his post, has said he acted quickly on his own
 initiative to do what was necessary to keep power flowing to the state.

 But Dunn, whose committee began serving 16 subpoenas this week,
 said the length and complexity of Winter's 50-page filing doesn't jibe
 with Winter's claim that he acted alone and at the last minute in making
 the request.

 "We're trying to determine who he was working with that led to the
 filing and whether there was generator involvement," Dunn said. "It also
 doesn't seem right that Winter, who owes his employment to the board,
 would run around them."

 The former 26-member ISO board was a mish-mash of generators and
 other industry "stakeholders", as well as consumer advocates and
 representatives of municipal utilities. Gov. Gray Davis replaced that
 board in January with five members pointedly chosen for their lack of
 affiliation with ISO market participants. The political nature of those
 appointments, however, has called into question the board's
 independence, an issue now being examined by FERC.

 Board Members Say They Weren't Notified

 Mike Florio, a consumer advocate who is the only current board
 member to have served on the old board, said he had no knowledge of
 Winter's FERC filing.

 "I was surprised that something that monumental was done without
 being consulted," said Florio, who received a subpoena Wednesday. "I
 could see the decision to file being made at the last minute, but
 obviously someone had to do the preparation work, and while that was
 being done there would have been time for consultation."

 Florio said that, at that time, the board was polarized on the issue of
 price caps, with those representing generators and large businesses
 against them, and municipal utilities and residential customers for
 them.

 Jan Smutny-Jones, a former board member and president of the
 Independent Energy Producers Association, a generators' group, also
 said he didn't know in advance about Winter's filing.

 "Board members were not consulted, regardless of their status in the
 marketplace," said Smutny-Jones, who received his subpoena Tuesday.
 "I understand why (Winter) made the filing. He's the CEO of the ISO,
 and he has that authority. In November and December the market was
 collapsing rapidly, and the board was politicized to the point of
 dysfunction. He did what he thought he needed to do."

 ISO spokesman Greg Fishman said Winter "absolutely did not" collude
 with generators, and said the move to lift the cap actually helped
 control prices paid by the ISO, which is responsible for keeping the
 lights on in the state.

 Rather than limit prices, the caps simply drove suppliers into uncapped
 markets outside the state, Fishman said. The ISO then had to buy back
 that out-of-market power at uncapped prices.

 "The official market price on Dec. 6 was $250 a megawatt-hour, but the
 price for us was really $506 a megawatt-hour," Fishman said.
 "In-market prices did spike after the December 8 order for a few days,
 but after the spike they went down under $200 a megawatt-hour. The
 order also gave us the ability to ask suppliers to justify their bids. It
 essentially brought them under our umbrella."

 The subpoenas request e-mail, telephone, travel and meeting records,
 among other items. Further subpoenas may be issued, Dunn said.