ST. LOUIS/ Behind The Headlines -- "For years, applications to site a new power plant have taken 12 months or more to work their way through California's permit process, versus 90 days in Texas," reports Paul Driessen of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). "Energy giant Enron recently completed several gas-fired electric generators in the Southeast in less than one year, from concept to completion," he observes. "A similar Enron project in California is already in its third year. . . ."

In a recent issue of The DeWeese Report, Driessen points out that permit applications in California "involve up to 17 assessments of historic, scenic, wildlife, recreational, and other values -- which can force blueprint changes costing $30 million in ancillary costs per project." He recalls that it took "17 years to get the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant up and running. Costs jumped twelvefold, from $500 million to $6 billion!" Driessen notes that similar restrictions have "also prevented the construction of more natural gas pipelines and high-voltage electric transmission lines. The resulting shortage of transmission capacity has made it difficult to bring gas and electricity into the state, or to move surplus power from one part of the state to another, to meet shortages caused by peak demand or power plant shutdowns."

Driessen stresses that "California did not deregulate its electrical utilities in 1996," as is frequently alleged. "What the state did was revise, augment, and further complicate its already overly stringent regulatory schemes," he charges. "Notably absent from this complex, restructured regulatory regime was any provision to address the supply side of the equation, other than a few more wind and solar facilities." Completely ignored was "the growing need for new transmission lines, gas pipelines, or gas, coal, or nuclear power plants. Nothing reduced the extensive delays . . . built into the state's regulatory system."

Driessen points out that "power consumption in California rose 20 percent" in the last ten years, "nearly twice as fast as the national average." In the last five years, however, "California's electricity generating capacity actually declined by 5 percent," he notes. "The decline in generating capacity reflects California's failure to build a single new electrical generating plant in over a decade . . . coupled with a 1978 moratorium on new nuclear plants and increasingly stringent restrictions on fossil-fuel generators." Driessen reports that "California now produces less electricity per capita than any other state. Instead of producing its own energy, it imported as much as one quarter of its needs from the other western states."

California no longer has that luxury, because "now the surplus is gone. Economic growth . . . has used up the extra electrical generating capacity; natural gas supplies are tight; and widespread droughts have diminished the available hydroelectric power," Driessen reports. "There is no quick fix to the current energy crisis, or to the longer-term threats that face California and the rest of the United States," he asserts. "However, if our representatives provide good judgment and responsible leadership, this crisis will benefit us all in the long run."

Duplantier is the author of Politickles: Limericks Lampooning the Lunatic Left (Merril Press, 2000), available at The Conservative Bookstore and other online locations.

Published by permission.