Benchmarks

Such attention has been paid recently to California's deregulation debacle and the lessons it should provide to other states considering deregulation. Behind California's high electricity prices, however, has been another crisis: extraordinarily high gas prices. In 1998 and 1999 gas prices in the West typically ranged from $2 to $3 per MMBtu. Late last year, however, gas prices at many locations in the West hovered above $20 per MMBtu, and on a few days, reached as high as $61 per MMBtu.