Before deregulation, Edison owned it's own power plants, transmitted the power down the lines & distributed the power. After deregulation, Edison could no longer own power plants or transmit the power down the lines. They could only distribute power. They were forced to sell their power plants & buy power from other companies. Now remind you that Edison is CONTRACTED to sell the power at a certain rate. That rate at the time of deregulation was .08-.10 per kilowatt hour. Greedy bastards like Enron were charging Edison upwards of $5.00 per kilowatt hour. Edison was losing millions per day, but couldn't raise thier rates because they were a utility & were regulated & any rate hikes had to be approved by a commission. How many companies do you know that could survive buying a product & selling it at a 500% loss? It sucks that Edison is raising it rates, but they aren't making money hand over foot like the oil companies. The companies that sell power to Edison are getting rich. You want to blame the high electric bills on somebody? Blame it on Pete Wilson (remember how he said deregulation was going to be wonderful for Californians?), blame it on Kenneth Lay & the greedy bastards at Enron. The power companies that didn't deregulate (i.e DWP, City of Anaheim) all sell power at virtually the same rates as before. Even though Edison looks like the bad guys, if ya do a little research you'll find that they are just trying to recoup the billions they lost a few years ago. It blows that we are the ones bailing them out when the crooks selling the power should be held accountable.
