Placing Blame on California

No, Mr. Balzar (“Just Blame It on California,” Commentary, May 16), as a Texas resident I’m not obsessed with blaming the energy problems on California. But I am concerned, as your piece implies, that Californians will attempt to place the blame somewhere other than where it belongs. Your governor is already trying to blame your self-inflicted energy problems on those rascal energy companies in Texas selling power to California.

There is only one place to put the blame and that is your California’s liberalism. You made your bed by kowtowing to the radical environmentalists and electing liberal ideological U.S. senators, state representatives and a governor. Now you want my tax money to bail you out.

Here in Texas, I will be cool this summer because we have taken a balanced approach to the environment under George W.’s leadership. Maybe your economy can overcome all this by pushing the flashlight and battery industry.

Wade Butler

San Marcos, Texas

John Balzar is right when he says the rest of the country is eager to blame California for anything that’s handy. Why? Because we’re envious of your weather. Another rotten Midwestern winter has just ended, and we know another one will be upon us long before we’re ready for it. So we’re indulging our American puritanical streak, which delights in the punishment of people we suspect of having more pleasant lives.

Dan Hagen

Charleston, Ill.

The governor needs to resign. I am a Democrat, but the Democrats are giving our state away to the Eastern corporations. By sheltering us ratepayers from the price gougers, then giving our money away to buy energy at any price, the assets of our power plants and public utilities are ending up in the hands of the corporations that will now own this state for the price of a song (“A One-Two Punch in the Budget,” May 16). The governor has not set a line in the sand on the wholesale price we will pay, on testing the courts to see if he can legally take our power plants back or on raising retail rates sufficiently to force painful rationing. Instead, he pays exorbitant rates to corporations whose chief executives would face lawsuits from their stockholders if they voluntarily reduced their rates. While we whined about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and President Bush and the corporations we cannot control, our state has been transformed from a great land to a place where we are subjects of a monstrous debt being paid to the shrewd Eastern energy corporations.

Chris Parkes

Moraga

Re “State Has Lost Global Lead in ‘Green’ Power,” May 16: Never fear. We are still comfortably in the lead. It is screwball ideas like “green” power that got us into the fix we are in. It was a fixation on “alternative” (read uneconomic) power that prevented construction of new power plants (fossil and nuclear) for 20 years.

Green power sources are always uneconomical--that is, costly--because they are dilute. Only intense power sources are feasible if you want cheap power. The only intense sources known to man are fossil, nuclear and hydroelectric--and all the good hydro sources are already in use.

James F. Glass

Chatsworth