Editorial: No easy answers to end crisis

Thursday, Jan. 25, 2001 | 10:23 a.m.

President Bush did the right thing Tuesday when he temporarily extended Bill Clinton's orders that require wholesalers to continue selling power to California's utilities. The stopgap measure was necessary since wholesalers have been leery of selling power to utilities that may be on the brink of bankruptcy. While Bush said a week ago that he thought California should solve this crisis on its own, his free-market philosophy ran head-first into the reality that some federal help was needed.

The administration has made it clear, however, that this is the last time it will intervene this way in California's crisis. While it's important for the state to get its own house in order, the Bush administration should be willing to work with California in finding solutions. The state isn't Wyoming, after all. If California were a nation, it would have the world's sixth-largest economy. So if California experiences a tailspin, the rest of the nation will get hit, too, including its next-door neighbor Nevada.

Congress aims to get more active in this issue, fearing that the crisis could spread to other parts of the West. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, plans to hear testimony next week from power producers and state officials on how other states might be impacted. "It's a disease that's rampant," warned Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho. Nevada itself almost got caught in the mess, with the CalNev pipeline from California being hit by the rolling blackouts. Two days' worth of electric-service interruption reduced the standby supply to the pipeline, the main supplier of gas and jet fuel to Southern Nevada. But Gov. Kenny Guinn, working with California Gov. Gray Davis, arrived at a temporary arrangement, which exempts the pipeline from rolling blackouts.

While the legislative branch certainly should be concerned by what's transpiring in California, don't be surprised to see some members of Congress use the energy crisis as a ploy to buddy up to some of their big campaign benefactors, the oil, gas and nuclear power industries. In fact, as the Sun's Benjamin Grove reported Wednesday, Murkowski and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., plan on introducing legislation that will tout not only drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, but also will promote nuclear power. Drilling in the refuge would be a huge mistake. It could forever harm the environment there, let alone the fact that it would take years before any oil could be tapped. An increase in nuclear power especially is troubling for Nevada, since this state's Yucca Mountain has been targeted by the federal government to be the repository for nuclear waste. It also was troubling, as Nevada Sen. Harry Reid pointed out, that there is an assumption tha! t a repository will be built -- even though the scientific investigation looking at Yucca Mountain's suitability is still ongoing. "They are looking right past Nevada as if this were a done deal," Reid spokesman David Cherry said.

The nation hasn't done enough to develop clean alternative-energy sources, such as solar, wind and geothermal. In addition, while businesses and homes are more energy efficient than ever, the relatively low cost of energy in the past decade has resulted in wasteful consumption, which only now is being cut back somewhat because of higher energy prices. There are no easy answers to this problem, which is hammering California now and could extend elsewhere. What is certain, though, is that the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress shouldn't see this as an opportunity to offer favors to their friends in the energy industry at the expense of consumers and the environment.