After watching your presentation of "Blackout" I question the program's conclusion, that the same problems California is now facing will confront the rest of the nation in the future.

If California power production had kept pace with demand, and they hadn't gotten themselves in the half regulated dilemna, they wouldn't have been forced to purchase power on the spot market (out of state). If California was consuming power produced in-state under some semblance of control prices would be far lower and no "crisis" would exist.

If other states ensure electricity production in the future can meet projected demand where's the problem for them?

To address the problem after the horse is out of the barn is futile. Companies who own electricity will sell it for profit. The bigger the better, within the rules. To do less would be unfair to their stockholders.

Sure, the Bush energy plan makes sense. Make energy available when and where needed in the future by increasing capacity. To do otherwise would expose a state to economic disaster, as in California today.

Dean Williams
crestview, fl

Dear FRONTLINE,

I don't understand why Californians think they should NOT be paying a premium for the energy they buy from other states?

They have seen fit to not build enough power plants to keep up with the growth in their population. They're government has put in place policies that has bankrupt their own power companies and has made the state utterly dependent on imported electricity. Now they want the federal government to cap what they have to pay out of state producers for wholesale energy.

Why is it okay for Texans, Oklahomans, North Carolinians, Tenneseeans etc.. to dirty up our air, our water, burn our plants at extra capacity, to provide California with electricity they could have surely produced themselves?

It's ridiculous for California to blame the producers, for their woes. Without them, California would have no electricity. Also, if it weren't profitable to produce energy, there would be none for California to buy.

Hey, California! Look in your own backyard, Look at your own special interest groups, Look at your own politicians, that's where your problem started and the ONLY place it will be solved. With a state as large and as blessed with natural resources as yours, you ought to be selling power to Texas and taking thier money.

Jody Snyder
greeneville, tennessee

Dear FRONTLINE,

The Republicans are happy that the people suffering the most live in California and New York since those states gave a majority of their votes to the Gore/Lieberman ticket. They'll get around to fixing the crisis, but right now it's payback time. I shudder to think how much worse off we'd be if Bush was a hardline conservative instead of a compassionate one.

Sigmund Susser
new york, new york

Dear FRONTLINE,

Bravo! Once again, Frontline has shone their journalistic light on the true issues and players of an emerging firestorm. You have discussed the issues in depth and with true lack of bias. You have documented the players and allowed them all to self-portray their halo with horns.

However, to my amazement, the one aspect of a true free-market economy was never discussed. How will the prices accurately reflect what the market will bear, when the true end-user/consumer, has no choice. The people of California cannot choose which power generator has the best price for them. The people cannot choose better service or better price. The people cannot choose anything other than to turn off their lights or purchase their own power generating equipment and go off the grid.

Only when we as individuals have the power to choose whose power we choose, will the prices accurately reflect what the market will bear. Currently, we are discovering what a state run power monopoly will bear, on behalf of the people.

James Torrico
north fort myers, fl

Dear FRONTLINE,

The TV program tonight was amazingly one-sided with virtually no facts presented. California is like the credit card spender who enjoys the purchases but resents the bill. The state screwed itself up and now expects the people from the other 49 states to bail them out. Hopefully someday voters will learn to vote the jerks who do stupid things out of office.

Richard Payne
annapolis, md

Dear FRONTLINE,

Who was/is competing with California for power? In other words when CALISO was paying $80/MW, who was offering to pay $79?

The failure to explain marginal pricing made Frontline's report virtually unintelligible.

Robert Beckman
madison, nj

Dear FRONTLINE,

Excellent program, but I was disappointed in one closing remark that said part of the problem is the "public wanting it all". Why that may be true to a certain degree, the program did not show to any degree how consumer demand or expectation has led to the power RATE crisis. Indeed, consumer demand has historically been well forecasted and anticipated. What I conclude from the program is the crisis is more one of deregulation bumbling (with most sectors of the energy business taking full advantage) than of supply and demand.

My state of Missouri must take a long hard look at whether the deregulation of a public commodity can truly happen in the consumers best interest, and that must be the critical factor.

liberty, missouri

Dear FRONTLINE,

thanks for an excellent program. I would be very interested in the trend of electricity use over the last ten or twenty years, on a per capita basis. I have seen no comment at all along this line. Do we need to sweat a little in the summer and wear a sweater in the winter? where is all the power used--and how much is due to population growth?

richard bennett
bartlesville, oklahoma

Dear FRONTLINE,

Why should energy companies sell their product for any less than they can sell it for?

How would you, the individual reader of this message, feel if the government came into your work place and told you that your salary/wage/tips were too high and that you were going to have to work for less money, "For the good of the people"?

Do people now accept that because the government has gotten away with violating people's freedom to contract with minimum wage laws that they can now start imposing maximum wage and maximum price laws?

Have people become so enamored of a big, all-controlling government that they just can't stand the thought of a free free-market? Must they demand that others work for less money, simply so that they can continue to enjoy buying things for less than market prices?

Capitalism works only when people are willing to take the responsibility required to provide for themselves.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw

Will Middelaer
new britain, ct

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your broadcast scared the living daylights (no pun intended) out of me. The ideological blindness of the deregulation people, not to mention the lack of empathy of the vice president of the United States forebodes a crisis for my children's generation unparalleled since the Great Depression. Let's hope that the next congressional and presidential elections will bring in new leaders who will correct this new Repubican robber baron era and which will realize that power is indeed unlike any other commodity.

James Coyle
hastings-on-hudson, ny