'Pure Demagoguery'

In June 2001, in the midst of California's energy crisis, the Democrats in Congress tried to set aside $350 million in federal loans and loan guarantees to improve power transmission systems. The Bush Administration's Republican allies in the House said no. "It's pure demagoguery," complained Tom DeLay of that effort.

You see, the grid is quasi-public infrastructure, like roads or schools. Like the roads, it's not terribly easy to make a buck off of, even though it's crucial to the economy. The grid does not give campaign contributions, or hire retired Congressmen to six-figure-do-nothing sinecures. So its needs can be held hostage to other Republican projects, like showering gargantuan $16 billion Soviet subsidy packages on nuclear power. You put the grid improvements and some other sensible things into a monstrous "energy bill", and tell the Democrats that if they want to invest in the grid, they'll first have to agree to spend 46 times as much money propping up a failed business like nuclear power. And that's all you really need to know about why the grid's a mess today.

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