Chuck Grimes makes some good points. I've been thinking of doing some reading (in those objects called books, not the net) about energy politics. All I can think of off the top of my head are dated sources like Robert Sherrill, "The Energy Follies, " Anthony Sampson, "The Seven Sisters, " the Midnight Notes compilation, the Michael Tanzer books from Monthly Review Press in 70's and 80's, an early 60's book from a Nation contributor, Robert Engler (?), "The Politics of Oil." How about a recommendations for a source in the 200 page range more recent than these. One on US energy generation and markets, another on the global situation. Skimming the bn.com hits for politics of oil I found an interesting looking one from Terry Karl, "The Paradox of Plenty, " from Stanford who has co-edited some good stuff with Kenneth Sharpe and William LeoGrande on the drug wars and U.S.-Central American policy.
Finally wanted to include some choice bits from the statements of Comissioners of the Ca. PUC yesterday, but, their website does not seem to have a transcript of the meeting yesterday.The long story last night on KPFA, the Berkeley Pacifica station, had the most remarkable condemnations of the free market and deregulation, some from self-confessed Reaganites like Richard Bilas. Just looked at the page on Bilas. He's a member of the Mont Pelerin Society, so he wasn't exaggerating his free market ideological committments! It will be interesting to see if activists and left Democrats in the state assembly will be able to push for a Public Power authority. And also looking forward to the KPMG audit of Profit, Greed & Extortion (yup, they do cash checks to that, I used to write mine to that!) and SoCalEdison. Does KPMG release summaries of audits? Doubt it in normal circumstances (priviledged and confidential proprietary bla bla bla) but, given the tumult on this, I'd expect some leaks to the media or even to folks like Harvey Rosenfeld.
Michael Pugliese