The first stone: blackouts a foreseeable result of destructuring.(Editorial)

No matter the cause of the August 14 blackout that crippled large swaths of the Northeast and the Midwest, federal and state regulators, executives, and legislators have to take the lion's share of the blame. Instead, they began running for political cover almost as soon as the lights dimmed.

In particular, Governor George Pataki (R-NY) reminded me of James Thomas (Cool Papa) Bell, a Negro Leagues baseball player who, fans said, could turn off a light switch and be in bed before the room was dark. When the lights went out, Pataki, with swiftness to match Cool Papa's reputation for speed, took to the airwaves demanding an explanation for the power outage. Politicians in New York and other states followed suit.

It wasn't as though they hadn't been told. Industry experts have issued warning after warning about the inevitability of outages due to transmission failures (see article, page 1). Their counsel was swallowed up in the sturm und drang over energy deregulation, but they had clearly foretold in detail, through numerous articles, seminars, and testimony before Congress, what Pataki now wants explained.

Let's be clear about this. Politicians may generate a final report that pins blame on operator error or a utility. Pay no attention to their transparent attempt to avoid accountability. The Center for the Advancement of Energy Markets (CAEM) predicted a major blackout in a report last year. The lack of a "sustainable consensus" on America's energy future shows the nation's energy leaders "have been asleep at the switch," said Ken Malloy, CEO of CAEM.

Until the nation's energy leaders smell the coffee, we're predictably vulnerable to similar outages and will have to contend with rolling blackouts and brownouts in the aftermath of what may be a series of grid failures.

The California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights (FTCR) noted that most of the states impacted by the blackout are those that have enacted electricity deregulation. I think this view is too simplistic. Count Pennsylvania as a deregulated state that escaped the consequences of the blackout. Even in hard-hit New York State, some areas (little Coxsackie, NY, for example where I live) experienced only short outages.

Politicians and ...