In 1996, the California Legislature unanimously approved legislation to deregulate electricity. The legislation promised competition and at least 20% lower electricity rates by 2002. Today, however, many agree that the deregulation of California was a disaster. There are disagreements on whom or what is to blame for the current situation and how to solve the problems.
             There are some who blame the utility companies for the deregulations current situation. Harvey Wasserman believes that the problems were started due to the mismanagement and greed of the corporations.
             "The roots of this unnatural disaster lie in the corporate boardrooms of the utility companies now on the brink of bankruptcy. It was their mismanagement and greed that led directly to some of the greatest miscalculations in the US business history." (Wasserman 11)
             He points out that the utility companies had once made "their own bad investments in obsolete generators, mainly nuclear power plants." (Wasserman 11) According to Wasserman, the utility companies were "Tired of having their rates regulated by the state's ninety-year old Public Utility Commission. What they wanted was to cash out of those bad investments, keep their big customers and make profits at will, without regulation." (Wasserman 11)
             Some of the alleged miscalculations of the companies were "their haste to cash out" and "their assumption that there would always be a surplus of cheap wholesale electricity." (Wasserman 11) The companies then began to sell off "much of their generating capacity and had too little of their own supply at a time when rates were still frozen. (Wasserman 11)
             There are some who disagree and blame the Governor and legislature of California for the problem. They say that the Sacramento Municipal Utility District should have been the model followed to help deregulate the utilities. Sacramento had ...