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American Morning

PBS Documentary Goes Inside the Utilities

Aired June 04, 2001 - 09:37   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: The problems behind California's power crisis are the focus of a documentary on the PBS program "Frontline." Here's a brief clip from the program called "Blackout."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, PBS' "BLACKOUT")

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had had a problem with one unit going out at 1:30 in the morning. We immediately then into our reserves, pulled down hydro. It became evident that nobody had energy for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAGAN: And joining us from our Boston bureau to talk about the documentary is "Frontline" correspondent and producer Lowell Bergman. Lowell, good morning, good to see you.

LOWELL BERGMAN, PRODUCER, "FRONTLINE": Good morning to you.

KAGAN: To refresh our...

BERGMAN: Good to see the lights on.

KAGAN: Good to see we're working today. That's positive. Sometimes you just don't know. Our viewers might be more familiar with you. Your the guy who, in the movie "The Insider," Al Pacino portrayed as the producer who took on the tobacco industry.

BERGMAN: I'm not Al Pacino.

KAGAN: You're not Al Pacino, but accomplished in your own right, and as a reporter, a journalist who really likes to take on tough, difficult topics, like the tobacco industry, like the drug wars, a previous "Frontline" documentary, and now, the power companies. How does that compare to previous topics?

BERGMAN: Well, this is really a subject that touches everyone's lives. As you know, when you wake up in the morning and you turn on your radio, you expect the electricity to be on or your television to go on. What happens when that doesn't happen? And why is that happening now in place like California, and also why are your bills going up. You're pretty lucky, actually, where you are. Your electricity bills are probably pretty stable. That's because you haven't deregulated yet. That is, they haven't tried to restructure the marketplace. KAGAN: You haven't see our natural gas bills. Our natural gas bills here in Atlanta have gone -- we've had taste of that.

BERGMAN: Well, that's part of the documentary. Natural gas has usually been set up as the example, the deregulation example for the rest of the country, and the reason why we started to deregulate electricity. Now, with the great rise in cost nationally, people are beginning to scratch their heads, and I think that's one of the reasons we decided to do the show is because we never really had what we would call an intense national discussion of why were we doing this to these essential commodities that we all need.

KAGAN: Well, let's talk about the deregulation. Story after story in California, you have people blaming deregulation. But what really is it, and what was it supposed to do and what went wrong?

BERGMAN: Well, first of all, California went first, in 1996 with a plan that now everyone is disowning, but everyone voted in favor of unanimously at the time. Every political spectrum joined in wanting to change the nature of the marketplace. So, in many ways, California is a learning experience for the rest of the country, probably in some of the rules that don't make sense or in the end, didn't make sense.

KAGAN: Why did it seem like a good idea back then? I mean, if all the people were in favor of it, then it must have looked good to a lot of people.

BERGMAN: Well, because number one, the utilities were never our favorite monopoly in any of our communities. You know about Homer Simpson and "Erin Brockovich" and the image isn't exactly of companies that warm our heart. That combined with large users of electricity, big industry wanted to change the system so they would have an opportunity to go out in the open marketplace and buy power cheaper or so they thought.

KAGAN: You mention, of course, that this is a story that touches all of us, anybody who electricity on in their home, unless it's like the folks that we featured before you who have their own power source. But how do you take that, Lowell, and how do you make it a good television story besides a bunch of pictures of power plants?

BERGMAN: Well, what we found, what we discovered is that the deregulation of the industry has created a new kind of energy company, and the best example of that is Enron, based in Houston, Texas, and they were nice enough and cooperative in every way. So, they let us in to see what it is they do do. What is this new new energy business.

For instance, Enron is the largest Internet business in the world. It has Enron Online, and on that site, it buys and sells tens of billions of dollars worth of electricity, gas and oil every year. This is a kind of marketplace that never existed before. So, one of the functions of a documentary is to try to open not only our eyes, the people doing it, the reporters, but also the public's eyes as to what has gone on. This is something that is well-known inside business communities nationally, but it's not well-known among most of us. So, that's one area. Another area that we get into is examining whether or not there was real manipulation by the energy generators in California, and nationally as well as the gas companies.

KAGAN: Well, we will look for it. We will look for it tomorrow, sorry. The power on our interview here is running out. We ran out of time. Lowell Bergman, good luck with it. Most viewers will find it on their PBS station tomorrow night, correct?

BERGMAN: Thank you. It will be -- check your local listings.

KAGAN: Check your local listings, as they say, and check the electricity bill as well. Lowell Bergman, thanks for joining.

BERGMAN: Thank you.

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