Guest Letters By Tom McClintock Reprinted with permission of the author Sacramento, where bad ideas never die. Sacramento is once again host to a variety of plans for the government takeover of California’s power system. The private sector, it is said, has done such a terrible job of providing electricity that government must now step in to…
There is an old story that goes something like this. An inventor once came up with a revolutionary carburetor so effective that it enabled a typical American car to travel 100 miles on a single gallon of gasoline. The carburetor never made it to the market because “Big Oil Companies” purchased the patent on the…
“Okay, We’ll go first.” I heard Exelon’s new advertising slogan for the first time on February 1, 2001. I felt the secret thrill that comes from recognizing an allusion that one is pretty sure very few people “get”. I had a strong desire to say “Yeah” and pump my fist. You see, I had just…
Reprinted with permission of the author Guest Letters By Tom McClintock In two devastating acts the state government has jumped into the business of buying and selling electricity. As one power executive said, “I sure hope you guys know what you’re doing. It takes just a small misjudgment to lose an awful lot of money.”…
The City of Thousand Oaks was a brand-new suburb of Los Angeles in 1965, with fresh, modern tract homes springing up everywhere. As a 9-year-old transplant from stogy New York, I coveted my neighbor’s house, the newest and the most modern on the block. It displayed an emblem near the front door proclaiming that the…
The news from California is frightening. The electricity supply has become so tenuous that it took quick action by the Water Resources Board to avert rolling blackouts yesterday, Sunday January 21, 2001. When supplying normal loads on a Sunday is an emergency, things are very, very, very bad. (My high school English teacher would be…
Originally published by Power Online On Tuesday, Jan. 9, the U.S. President Clinton is going to hold a meeting at which he plans to try to figure out what to do about the electricity supply situation in California. I have not yet received my invitation to the meeting, but when asked (fat chance), this is…