Investors cheer rate hikes Potential higher California electricity rates boosts PG&E and Edison Int'l

March 26, 2001: 4:46 p.m. ET

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The prospect of substantially higher electricity rates in California drew rave reviews Monday on Wall Street as investors snapped up the long-suffering stocks of the state's two largest utilities.

Shares in PG&E Corp. (PCG: Research, Estimates) surged $3.10, or 29 percent, to $13.75 while Edison International (EIX: Research, Estimates)'s stock gained $3.35, or 30 percent, to $14.55.

San Francisco-based PG&E and Rosemead-based Edison International own utilities that have been flirting with bankruptcy for months as they paid for soaring wholesale electricity costs that couldn't be passed on to customers under the state's deregulation law.

After months of resistance to the idea, state political leaders and regulators are poised to swallow a bitter pill and prescribe significant new rate increases.

California's top power regulator proposed a 40 percent hike in electricity rates Monday, saying such an increase should encourage customers to cut back on usage and conserve enough power to get through the hot summer months.

The likely rate increases weren't the only good news for utility shareholders Monday.

-- (great news @ for. our economy), March 26, 2001

Answers

Excellent! Now all we need is for about 10 million more people to get laid off and the stock market will be right back where it was before Dumbya took over!

If the stock market is doing good, everything is doing good! (except for the people who no longer have a job and have to pay 40% more for power)

-- (Dumbya's world @ excellent. for corporations), March 26, 2001.

I heard 58%. Did anyone ever really think the money would come from anywhere else?

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), March 27, 2001.

The money should come from the power providers who have been jacking prices to California utilities since Dumbya took office an asked them to fabricate an energy crisis. Since the utilities are playing along in this game for their own benefit, they aren't complaining about it, and there will be no investigation. In the end, the parties involved have achieved their goals and the consumer will get the shaft.

-- (welcome to @ dubya's. world), March 27, 2001.

>>The money should come from the power providers who have been jacking prices to California utilities since Dumbya took office an asked them to fabricate an energy crisis

Brownouts & blackouts w/California power carriers started almost two years ago. Bush has been in office two months. You lose.

-- scarlotti (SCL@hoofnmouth.com), March 27, 2001.

I heard 58%. Did anyone ever really think the money would come from anywhere else?

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), March 27, 2001.

It was coming from us, inthe NorthWest, we always conserve anyway, have for decades, yet our prices were hiked at least 50% to cover the cost of the consumers in California. They had price controlls, we didn't. I am tired of paying to heat their hot tubs, wearing coats in my house because we have to go with little or no heat because of the price of electricity which is generated by our hydroelectric plants while the people in california run their air conditioners at full blast and enjoy rates many times lower than us. And thesame goes with water, they water their sidewalks (call it cleaning them) while we shower in 2's and threes and lived with parched lawns. Every time we get rain around here (finally) everyone from the 82 yearl old lady I take care of to my 10 year old, applaud the rain when we get it. The transplants around here from California run crying into thier houses when it rains. You can always tell a california transplant, they are the people who use umbrellas when it drizzles.

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), March 27, 2001.