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Enron Mail |
We face two parallel tracks in the Senate in the coming weeks between now and
the start of the congressional recess for one week on June 29th. In the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, we will be facing efforts by pro-price caps forces who will use the committee "bully pulpit" to pressure FERC into more action. This effort is led by incoming chairman Bingaman with support from Majority Leader Daschle. They are saying they will consider acting on the Feinstein-Smith price cap legislation unless FERC takes unspecified additional action by the end of this month. The new track in the Senate will be in the Governmental Affairs Committee chaired by Sen. Lieberman (D-CT). While this committee does not have the legislative jurisdiction over energy that the Energy Committee does in terms of moving legislation, the Governmental Affairs Committee has broad oversight and investigatory jurisdiction over all federal agencies, including FERC. New chairman Lieberman held his first press conference as chairman today and said addressing high energy prices would be a priority. In that vein, the committee is expected to hold a hearing on June 13 featuring some of the economists who wrote a letter in favor of price caps last month. We are checking with the Republican staff to make sure that the anti-price cap economists (the majority of the discipline, of course) will also testify. We also brief committee members and staff with our arguments against price caps and the latest publicly available market data. On June 20 the committee will hold a hearing on whether FERC has properly exercised its duties under the Federal Power Act to make sure that wholesale power rates are just and reasonable. We are going to meet with the committee majority staff, but we presently expect this hearing to have political witnesses (i.e., elected officials, possibly including Gov. Davis). We must keep in mind that Sen. Feinstein had earlier written to Chairman Lieberman asking for a hearing on the California energy situation, including relationships between FERC and those it regulates (citing the NY Times article involving Enron and Chairman Hebert). There is at present no indicationi that either hearing will address this matter. We are, as you might imagine, paying close attention to this situation. Over in the House, Energy and Commerce Chairman Tauzin has said he will write to FERC asking them to extend the April 26 price mitigation order to the entire west and to extend it to 24/7. He also asks FERC to see if it can implement "negawatts" demand reduction administratively. We are in the process of obtaining a copy of the letter, which has not yet been made public. Also in the House, we expect congressional committees to begin marking up portions of the President's energy legislation and related topics as the month unfolds.
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