Cheney’s View on Power Price Caps
So President Bush and Vice President Cheney are not to be trusted (‘An Oilman’s Dream,†editorial, May 8). Because they are oilmen, they are incapable of putting the best interests of their country first and of fashioning an energy policy that will lead to adequate supplies without doing great environmental harm. In particular, Cheney’s coal will corrupt his ability to see as clearly as your editorial board does, and, God forbid, he believes the market should establish energy prices even in times of severe shortages.
Has it occurred to you that the state would not be on the brink of great financial loss, the utilities would be whole and the consumption of electricity would be lower by the equivalent of several new power plants if prices had risen to the market at the onset of the shortage? Apparently not.
Jerry Andersen
Pacific Palisades
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If ever there was a doubt that Cheney was a captive of the power industry and other energy entities, his stance, as set forth in “Cheney Rejects Price Caps, Aid for Calif. Power Crisis†(May 5), eliminates any doubt. To compare a request for short-term price caps on energy-gouging electric power suppliers to President Nixon’s across-the-board price controls in the ‘70s shows Cheney’s captured thinking. The administration’s policies, as presently outlined, are the most destructive to this country in modern memory.
If California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer would rediscover the filibuster, they could get the Bush “distraction derby†to stop and listen.
Stuart Riddle
San Gabriel
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Just like Herbert Hoover during the Depression, Cheney sticks to the party line that the so-called free market must be left alone, despite profiteering and price-gouging. The reason: We do not want to stop investment in the long run. But he fails to make the case that we need unjust and unfair price increases to encourage investment. Investors are entitled to a fair return, not an outrageous one that hurts the rest of society. And in the short run, we should not be left to twist in the wind while the energy companies soak us dry and take advantage.
Stan Coleite
Burbank
