Most people don’t even know that this proposition is on the ballot. This is the stealth measure that is totally forgotten amongst a list of emotionally charged props.

The goal of this measure is to clean up the mess that caused the electricity shortages a few years ago. It decides to go the route or re-regulating a portion of that which was deregulated.

This is another case of a partially baked proposal. The problem a few years ago was that the front end price of electricity was set by the PUC but the back end price (the price that our electric company paid) was being determined by the market. The result was that the electric companies were paying WAY more for electricity than they were able to charge for it.

I think the right solution to the problem is to deregulate the front end. When consumers can reap the benefits of dramatically reducing their electric bills by using less energy at peak times, the price of electricity will follow a more traditional supply vs. demand curve.

This proposition takes us the other direction by forcing more entities back under the regulation of the PUC. The PUC is one of the worst run organizations in the country. Not much more needs to be said.

My endorsement: NO on prop. 80

This entry was posted on Friday, November 4th, 2005 at 5:46 pm and is filed under Politics, Politics - State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.