Letter: AES 'Completely Exonerated' in Energy Crisis Probe

It is unfortunate although somewhat accepted that political campaigns can occasionally get heated, but when an individual resorts to slanderous lies and character assassinations an ethical line has been crossed. Most recently, an employment law attorney representing the No Power Plant group and passing himself off as a land-use expert has been crossing that line routinely.  

It is true that AES Southland was investigated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) during the 2001 energy crisis, just as almost every other electricity supplier in California was. FERC conducted numerous interviews, reviewed hours of taped phone conversations and hundreds of emails and ended its investigation without ever finding that AES Southland—or any of its officers or employees—did anything illegal.   

We did not pay any penalties or fines, accept any sanctions or have our market authority restricted in any way. There was definitely no fraud or massive blackouts as alleged by the No Power Plant representative. In no uncertain terms, we were completely exonerated—and for anyone to say otherwise is a complete fabrication.

In a nutshell, a “non-managerial” employee of our contractual counterparty, Williams, offered AES Southland an incentive to extend the length of an outage so that we could perform needed repair work. AES Southland refused the incentive and the FERC specifically wrote, “Williams did not ultimately pay to Southland any financial inducement to extend the outages and AES Southland maintained control of the outage schedule.” End of story.

There are only a few more days left in the campaign. Why don’t we let the voters of Redondo Beach decide their position on Measure A based on its merits and not on slanderous lies and baseless character attacks.

Sincerely,

Eric Pendergraft
President, AES Southland

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