Public Power, Private Profit, Abrogated Responsibility

We are facing the same old problem again, with new decorations. The state is dependant on electric power. The previous govenor, Republican Pete Wilson, pushed thru the deregulation law written by the power industry. There was a choice to be made, and PG&E and SCE chose to go the deregulation route, seeing greater profit in that, while DWP chose otherwise, being more interested in continued service.

The profit motivated entities both sold off power generation resources, in keeping with the law they wrote, and transfered the profit to their parent companies, which would be enough to cover their current shortfall. The parent companies have the profit, and the public is obliged to cover the shortfall they created.

Now the nasty questions:

Why did we let the power companies write the law effecting their profit?
Why did we let them shift the profits?
Why wasn't anything done last summer when the error of this action became obvious?
Private industry can legally and financially die; government can not. Why are we using government resources to rescue a private corporation from the results of their own actions? They wrote and approved of the law, and then took actions which specificly made money for their parent company and endangered their own existance.

Anybody for conservation? Less light polution? More responsibility?