Court Orders Calif. Energy Supply To Continue
S A C R A M E N T O, Calif. , Feb. 6 -- A judge tonight ordered amajor electricity supplier to keep selling to California despitethe expiration of a Bush administration order requiring it to doso.
Just hours before the directive's midnight deadline, U.S.District Judge Frank Damrell issued a temporary restraining orderrequiring Reliant Energy Services Inc. to continue selling power tothe state. The order will remain in effect pending a hearingWednesday afternoon.
The judge's action, issued to avoid "obvious, irreparable harmto the public," came after the keeper of the state's power gridsought restraining orders to force three major electricitysuppliers to continue selling to California.
The other two, AES Pacific Inc. and Dynegy Power Corp., agreedto continue providing power at least until the Wednesday hearingand were not included in the court's order.
Scrambling for Power
At issue was enough electricity for roughly 4 million homes. "There are about 4,000 megawatts at stake here," saidStephanie McCorkle, spokeswoman for the Independent SystemOperator. "We have not gotten confirmation of their intentionscome midnight, when the order expires. The outcome of this is goingto give us a good indication of the risk of rolling blackoutstomorrow."
The U.S. Department of Energy's orders requiring powergenerators and natural gas producers to sell surplus supplies toCalifornia were due to expire at 12 a.m. PT. The orders, firstissued in mid-December by the Clinton administration and extendedby new Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, will not be renewed, theBush administration said.
That left the managers of California's stressed grid — in thefourth straight week under a Stage 3 power alert — wonderingwhether enough electricity would be available to avoid rollingblackouts. The ISO ordered scattered outages twice last month.
Adding to the scramble, the ISO predicted that on Wednesday itwould only get about half the 8,000 megawatts it typically drawsfrom the Pacific Northwest during California's morning and eveningpeak periods.
Related Stories
ABC News Live