Wednesday

There Goes the Electrical Grid

Leave it to Molly to point out how the powers that be are turning our public resources into a private auction. One more step on the “Road to Serfdom."


Molly Ivins

The trouble with deregulation is that it always takes some disaster like Enron before we realize there was a reason for the regulation to begin with. We are about to repeat one of the huge mistakes of the 1920s and '30s because we have forgotten why PUHCA (pronounced Pooka) was instituted in the first place. PUHCA is the Public Utility Holding Company Act, passed in 1935, which prevents concentration of ownership of power plants. Both the House and Senate versions of the energy bill contain a repeal of PUHCA. As Kelpie Wilson points out in an article for Truthout, "For 50 years we have had reliable, cheap electric power that has allowed strong economic growth, and no PUHCA-regulated energy holding company has ever gone broke."
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