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American Morning
Senate Investigates Nation's Energy Crunch
Aired June 13, 2001 - 09:15 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.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: The nation's energy crunch is generating a lot of activity on Capitol Hill today. It is the focus of several hearings and press conferences as lawmakers look for ways to address the problems.
CNN congressional correspondent Kate Snow is tracking all this for us on Capitol Hill. She joins us now, live -- good morning, Kate.
KATE SNOW, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will be in the hot seat here later on this morning. In addition, Senator Joe Lieberman will be holding hearings of his Government Affairs Committee questioning economists about the role of deregulation in this energy, what they would call a, crisis.
A lot of pressure mounting here on Capitol Hill for the administration to do something about the situation out West in terms of electricity prices. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, otherwise known as FERC, is scheduled to meet on Monday. And congressional sources say they're going to consider whether or not to extend what they call price mitigation efforts - a type of price controlling - whether to extend that to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Right now, those kind of price mitigation efforts are only in effect during severe emergencies.
Members of the House delegation from California met with Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday. They encouraged the vice president to do something along those lines, to encourage FERC to do more price mitigation. The members came out after that meeting and said that they were a bit disappointed. They explained why they had urged Vice President Cheney to go for price controls.
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REP. BRAD SHERMAN (D), CALIFORNIA: If you can produce a megawatt for $30 at a particular plant and that plant is allowed to sell that megawatt for $50, you make your maximum profit by maximizing production. But if you have a plant that can produce a megawatt for $30 and -- but by withholding some of that supply you can drive the price up to $500, $600, $800 a megawatt, then you'd have the California situation. Price regulation will produce megawatts.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SNOW: Vice President Cheney, though, defended the administration's position, which is that price controls simply don't work -- a position that was echoed also yesterday by Senate Republican leader Trent Lott.
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SEN. TRENT LOTT (R-MS), MINORITY LEADER: That and not - does not produce any more energy and as a matter of fact, it undermines the future ability to have an adequate supply. No, we need a much broader policy than that, one that does encourage additional supply in all areas: coal, gas, the natural gas, oil, nuclear, hydro, the whole area, plus conservation, plus other alternative options of fuel.
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SNOW: Other senators say they would be encouraged and it would be positive news if FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, were to extend the price mitigation efforts, as I mentioned before. I just ran into Senator Frank Murkowski, the ranking Republican on the Energy Committee. He says it would be a positive step. Senator Diane Feinstein a Democrat from California, said last night, I don't care what they call it, whether it's price mitigation or some other title, as long as it gets the jobs done. But there are doubts from Democrats. House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt telling me this morning that he's wary of this idea of extending price mitigation. He said it may be just subterfuge, just a lot of dust, trying to make it look like the administration is getting something done -- back to you, Leon.
HARRIS: All right. Thanks much. Kate Snow on Capitol Hill, we'll see you later on.
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