Energy Testimony Resumes After Edison 'Bombshell'

LOS ANGELES-Lawmakers today resumed hearings on the causes of the state’s energy crisis, after a top executive from one of the two big utilities admitted Friday that his parent company had collected hundreds of millions in tax payments from its California subsidiary but passed along only a fraction of the money to the state.

According to documents that Southern California Edison provided to state officials, the utility forwarded hundreds of millions in tax payments every year to its parent, Edison International. SCE provides power to more than 10 million customers, most of them in Southern California.

Yet, Edison International shifted most of that money to some of its money-losing operations in other states. For example, the documents show, in 1998 SCE forwarded $431 million for taxes to Edison International—but Edison International paid only $1 million to the state and federal governments because the remaining $430 million was largely spread among its money-losing operations in other states.