[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 84 (Friday, June 21, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H3815]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   FERC HAS NOT AND CANNOT DO ITS JOB

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Filner) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to briefly discuss this week's 
release by the General Accounting Office, the GAO, its study on actions 
needed by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, that is, FERC, to 
confront challenges that impede effective oversight. That was the title 
of this GAO report. This report vindicates those of us who have been 
standing up for 2 years now to tell this body that FERC was simply not 
doing its job protecting California and the rest of the country, and 
this report vilifies those who doubted us for the last 2 years.
  In the conclusion of the report, we read that ``FERC is not 
adequately performing the oversight that is needed to ensure that 
prices produced by these markets are just and reasonable.'' Let me 
repeat that, ``FERC is not adequately performing the oversight that is 
needed to ensure that prices produced by these markets are just and 
reasonable.'' That means that illegal prices have been charged to 
electricity consumers all over this country, but specifically in 
California, and the report goes on to say, FERC has been simply not 
fulfilling its regulatory mandate.
  The GAO report says that FERC does not even know how to carry out its 
mandate to ensure that interstate wholesale natural gas and electricity 
prices are, as the law states, just and reasonable. If FERC does not 
know how to regulate power markets, who does?
  We need a change because we do not need a repeat of the inaction we 
saw from FERC in 2000 that has drained the California Treasury of 
almost $50 billion and has created a severe deficit in our State's 
budget this year.
  Two years ago, California and the hands-off treatment it received 
from FERC was the canary in the gold mine, if I may say so, that is 
exposing the glaring fissures in our so-called energy policy. The lack 
of action by FERC, or as it should be called the Federal Enron Rubber-
Stamping Commission, hurt many everyday Americans in our State and 
throughout our Nation.
  FERC did not do its job in 2000. It did not do its job in 2001, and 
the GAO report says that FERC cannot do its job even now. My 
constituents in San Diego, California, and millions of other 
Californians lost billions during this crisis, and FERC reported no 
evidence of price-fixing.
  Now FERC says it is waiting for the regional transmission 
organizations, the RTOs, to provide front-line monitoring for new, 
unregulated power markets. The problem is, Mr. Speaker, that it may 
take several more years for these RTOs to form, and in a gross 
understatement the GAO report says, ``As the California crisis has made 
adequately clear, FERC simply cannot let the markets go unmonitored for 
this length of time.''
  It is abundantly clear, Mr. Speaker, that there has been a lot of 
damage, and we need a fresh look, farther away from this 
administration, farther away from the FERC Commissioner, farther away 
from people tainted with association with Enron.
  We need to know how Enron and other members of the electricity cartel 
robbed California and eluded the oversight of the Federal Enron Rubber-
Stamping Commission. This should lead, by the way, to every State in 
this country and other countries around the world to really questioning 
whether they should deregulate to the so-called private market 
electricity and other basic commodities that are necessary for our 
economic life.
  There is no public oversight, as the GAO report shows, of what the 
so-called private market will do. They will rob us blind as they did to 
us in California. That is why I continue to call for the Attorney 
General to name a special prosecutor to look into this whole case.
  My bill, H. Con. Res. 333, would make this request on behalf of our 
entire Congress. We must not have even the perception that the fox, 
that is, FERC, is guarding the hen house, that is, our electricity 
market.
  This Congress must demand that this situation end and appoint a 
special prosecutor and figure out what happened and how we are going to 
proceed from here.

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