Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Bruce A Thompson]

Exactly! PUT UP OR SHUT UP!

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?T=marketsquote99_relnews.ht&s=APdvxFhZaQ2FsaWZv

California Utilities' Wood on 100-Day Market Manipulation Probe
By Michael B. Marois


San Francisco, Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- California Public Utilities Commissioner Carl Wood comments on a decision by federal regulators to give California 100 days to find additional evidence of market manipulation by power sellers during the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001.

``As has been the pattern, FERC is much more concerned about looking after the interests of the marketers and trying to get them healthy again so that they can resume with the deregulation project, than they are with protecting consumers.'

``We have spent two years investigating and looking at what data we've been able to get and there's a huge amount of analysis that goes into this and now all of a sudden after screwing around for over two years they want us to wrap the whole thing up in 100 days.'

``It's a scam because FERC is going through the motions of making it appear they are doing an honest investigation and allowing the investigation to proceed, but we are taking about hundreds and hundreds of boxes information with maybe millions of data points and nobody has software developed to go through this stuff.'

``I don't even know how we can assess what we have in 100 days much less actually analyze it and then initiate some kind of action.'

``I don't regard this as a meaningful victory. It's a very grudging concession by FERC which has the downside that they slam the door shut after 100 days.'