Subject: california update 3 / 29 / 01
? socal and pg & e have both made payments to the state of california ( dwr ) for power purchases per the puc order on tuesday . socal made a payment on wednesday of $ 43 . 5 m for purchases between january 19 - february 11 and pg & e paid $ 61 m .
? attorney general , bill lockyer , has ruled that the media does not have the right to view the long - term power contracts being negotiated .
? senator burton stated on the senate floor this morning that legislators need to set their regular session bill unrelated to energy quickly because there would be no rule waivers . he also noted that there would probably not be a lot of money for anything besides energy , and therefore a lot of bills would probably die in policy committee .
? in a conference call on tuesday , socal stated to a group of commercial paper holders that it would pay back interest on its commercial paper , which is approximately $ 30 m . one commercial holder said that since there is no default rate specified in the paper , the default rate should automatically be 10 % under california law . the socal representative replied " we don ' t think that applies to us . " in other words , socal does not plan on paying an added default rate on top of the interest payments .
? at this time , the legislature announced they would probably not be taking their easter break , scheduled for the week of april 9 th . according to a source , burton is not allowing any passes for any travel or absences . hertzberg has gone a step farther and said that any travel has to approved by his office and the member themselves has to come to his office to pick up the tickets . some believe this maybe an attempt to push the republicans into breaking the stalemate on ab 8 x ( voted down last friday ) currently being debated in the assembly .