San Mateo County to Sue over Natural Gas prices

The County of San Mateo is joining the rush of public agencies filing suit over price manipulation of Natural Gas in the monts leading into the 2000-01 California Energy Crisis:

The lawsuit was filed in state Superior Court in Redwood City on Dec. 23, and names as defendants more than 25 producers, marketers, traders, transporters, distributors and sellers of retail natural gas and their subsidiaries.

Filed by the county's legal counsel in cooperation with the Burlingame-based national law firm of Cotchett, Pitre, Simon & McCarthy, the suit accuses the companies of illegally colluding to spike the price of retail gas to more than six times the national average during the state's energy crisis in 2000 and 2001.

"... This case is about anti-competitive, unlawful, unfair and fraudulent conduct under California law that was motivated by greed and facilitated by industry insiders for one purpose: to generate increasingly larger profits from the sale of gas to retail customers in California," the 27-page complaint states in part.

Among the companies named in the suit are San Diego-based Sempra Energy and its subsidiaries: Sempra Energy Trading Corp., a leading marketer and trader of natural gas, Southern California Gas Company, the nation's largest natural gas distribution utility, and San Diego Gas & Electric, a provider of gas and electric service to 3 million California consumers.

Whether or not these lawsuits pan out, they do make the case for diversifying the supply of natural gas providers in the future so one company which generates, purchases and delivers the product cannot exercize its forces upon a less-than-free market.