Another Friday Outrage By PAUL KRUGMAN When the E.P.A. makes our air dirtier, or the Interior Department opens a wilderness to mining companies, or the Labor Department strips workers of some more rights, the announcement always comes late on Friday � when the news is most likely to be ignored on TV and nearly ignored by major newspapers. Last Friday the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC, announced settlements with energy companies accused of manipulating markets during the California energy crisis. Why on Friday? Because the settlements were a joke: the companies got away with only token payments. It was yet another demonstration of how electricity deregulation has gone wrong. Most independent experts now believe that during 2000-2001, price manipulation by energy companies, mainly taking the form of "economic withholding" � keeping capacity offline to drive up prices � added billions of dollars to California's electricity bills. A March FERC report concluded that there had been extensive manipulation of prices in both the natural gas and electricity markets. Using methods widely accepted among economists, the California Independent System Operator � which operates the power grid � estimated that withholding by electricity companies had cost the state $8.9 billion. This estimate doesn't include the continuing cost of long-term contracts the state signed, at inflated prices, to keep the lights on during the crisis. Yet the charges energy companies agreed to added up to only a bit more than $1 million. That is, the average Californian was bilked of more than $250, but the state will receive compensation of about 3 cents.� http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/02/opinion/02KRUG.html