During a period of significant population growth, booming economy, higher natural gas and oil prices, rapid proliferation of electricity consuming workplaces, equipment and appliances:

• Don't educate people or pass laws to conserve electricity.
• Do force utilities to sell their power generating plants to wholesalers.
• Do allow the new wholesalers who generate electricity to raise prices freely.
• Don't permit utilities to sign long term contracts with wholesalers to attain price stability.
• Do allow wholesalers to provide or not provide power to utilities who want and need it.
• Don't allow the utilities to pass along real higher costs to consumers.
• Do prevent or slow down the building of new generating plants and distribution lines.
• Don't support aggressively wind, solar and other alternative energy sources.
• Do include doses of corporate greed and mismanagement, governmental ineptness and poor coordination, special interest groups' demands.
• Do point fingers, quibble and delay reasonable, compromise solutions.

So goes California power in the new century.