by Katy Grimes
As Appearing in the California Globe
Part ll of California Senate utility hearing
In Part l of Utility Chiefs Grilled by California Senators Over Power Shut Downs, the CEOs and COOs of the California’s largest utilities testified Monday in a hearing held by the California Senate Energy and Utilities Committee over the shutting off of power for millions of people in an attempt to prevent wildfires.
The second part of the hearing had Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “energy czar” and agency heads give their testimony. While the first part of the hearing was called a dog and pony show, the second part can also be described as such: a highly promoted, over-staged presentation, replete with bureaucrat-speak.
Most concerning however, is that even after this 7-hour hearing of mea culpas, doublespeak and bureaucratic blather, most Californians know there is a great deal of blame and guilt to go around, but don’t believe the lawmakers really care about finding the cause(s), or correcting the inherent problems.
Ayn Rand described this dilemma in Businessmen vs. Bureaucrats:
A businessman’s success depends on his intelligence, his knowledge, his productive ability, his economic judgment—and on the voluntary agreement of all those he deals with: his customers, his suppliers, his employees, his creditors or investors. A bureaucrat’s success depends on his political pull. A businessman cannot force you to buy his product; if he makes a mistake, he suffers the consequences; if he fails, he takes the loss. A bureaucrat forces you to obey his decisions, whether you agree with him or not—and the more advanced the stage of a country’s statism, the wider and more discretionary the powers wielded by a bureaucrat. If he makes a mistake, you suffer the consequences; if he fails, he passes the loss on to you, in the form of heavier taxes.
