Word: wagnerism
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...never or when the utilities have settled their tab with the power companies, somewhere around $4.5 billion. Both sides use different math, different records, different allegations that nobody can seem to prove one way or the other. The designated referee, veteran federal mediator (and FERC chief judge) Curtis L. Wagner, wasn't getting paid to find and declare the truth - he was just mediating a private negotiation, and it was a doozy...
...Wagner mentioned that he had an offer on the table from power generators, including the "Big Five" - AES/Williams, Duke, Dynegy, Mirant and Reliant - for oh, $700 million, which clearly did not satisfy the California people. But perhaps for the front page, Wagner shrugged and took a more generous guess: Maybe a refund to the state of perhaps $1 billion was due, but there was the matter of the utilities' unpaid bills...
...Comparing it to a car accident in which he hit a man who owed him a ton of money - and thus would receive only a reduction in the size of his debt as damages, Wagner asked, "Can a refund be required when overcharges are less than the outstanding bill? The case judge thinks not." Citing the Rashomonic mathematics and closely guarded ledgers in the case, however, Wagner said he would recommend to the FERC that it conduct a full evidentiary hearing and take its own accounting...
...This thing, in other words, just went back to sleep. The FERC decided to let Wagner take a whack at the dispute on June 18, the same day the agency upshifted its "price mitigation plan" to 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week wholesale price caps on the electricity markets of "the entire 11-state Western region." That little number was widely seen to give Bush some badly needed cover, as FERC was an independent agency doing the politically smart thing for apparently pure motives. Bush the pure-bred capitalist could look graceful simply by not squealing like...
...whether their postcards had arrived. ("It has? Great. Bye.") In the first part of the 20th century, the Paris utility pioneered a phone-in opera service. Marcel Proust loved it. He'd dial up from home and someone would hold up a phone next to the stage and, voila, Wagner interactif...