Subject: WGA conf call tomorrow
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2001 01:05:00 -0700 (PDT)

All--here's some thoughts on our work with the Governors going forward thru the next 3 to 6 months.  Although Paul and I have talked about picking 4 or 5 specific issues or solutions to focus on, I am a bit concerned that we will not be able to get them to focus on more than 1 or 2.  We also have to give them some constituent cover, and the other overriding concern is that the Republicans will generally only support what Cheney/Bush support.  The Republican governors are clearly looking at the WGA as a vehicle to "cover" their interests as well as an entity to come up with a solution for new and improved transmission systems.  

Here's a few strategies we've been talking about in addition to what we're doing at the WGA transmission workshop meetings:

	1.  Convince the Governors that they need to send a strong message to all stakeholders that they expect RTO west to have met identified goals and guidelines by a certain date and be up and running by a date  beyond that.  We would need to come up with that timeline in very short order, as the best shot we would have in getting those dates in the public domain on record would be thru the energy resolutions that will be passed at the WGA annual conference in August.  This would be a long shot because of all of the incumbent interests.  However, if we could get a VERY simple message on this goal we might have a shot.  

	2. Educate/mobilize the Governors to petition FERC to make sure that the refund settlement mania doesn't extend outside sales in California. Paul can talk about this a little more in depth tomorrow---my understanding is that Pacificorp is looking for that relief, but our argument would be that a bailout for them would in esssence punish all of the utilities that did right by their customers and planned well.  We could frame it as a shareholder vs consumer issue.  

	3.  Formalize a list of compatible items in both the Democrat and the Cheney/Bush plans and work to communicate those areas that could be agreed on.  I'm not sure how measurable the benefit to us would be in this endeavor---I think we would have to do tremendous PR in order for it to have any benefit to Bush and therefore the Republican Governors.  The individual benefits to Locke and Kitzhaber might be better relationships for us with their offices, but I'm not sure what else.

 And of course we would like the Governors to petition FERC to mandate open access--we're trying to set a time in late July for Steve Kean and Governor Geringer to meet.  Kean thinks Geringer might be a good messenger to FERC.