California Deregulation Champion State Senator Steve Peace (D-San Diego) told a San Francisco audience of Businesses for Social Responsibility that California's electric deregulation bill - AB 1890, now Chapter 854 of 1996 - was not meant to make the retail market competitive for consumers.

Peace's chief of staff and ex-lobbyist for Southern California Edison, David Takashima, rephrased the State Senator's remarks for California Energy Markets. "Competition is really on the generation side, not at the consumer level."

Takashima added that the bill was not intended to facilitate consumer aggregation. "A lot of people look at AB 1890 as a masterpiece, but it's not. What the Legislature did, did not answer all the questions." Nevertheless, Takashima predicted that "cleanup legislation" will not be discussed for a year or two.