Lexecon Authors Publish in The Electricity Journal

An article by Steven Peterson and Charles Augustine of Lexecons Harvard Square office has been published in the August-September 2003 issue of The Electricity Journal. Entitled "Regulatory Failure in the California Electricity Crisis," the article finds that the view that the FERC failed in its oversight of western power markets during the 2000-2001 California energy crisis is overly simplistic. Instead, the authors conclude, physical and political realities were the cause, and only vigorous state action restored the balance of supply and demand. The real regulatory failure was that the FERC and California state policymakers were unable to work together to resolve the crisis.