<By the way, how far are Republicans willing to go down the path of claiming that Davis had anything what-so-ever to do with designing the regulatory situation that you claim was the cause of the mess?

Good point. The original crappy legislation, as seen in this article, was a totally bipartisan effort. As it says, it "passed the legislature unanimously and was eagerly signed by Republican Gov. Pete Wilson."

Davis got grief here for making a bad situation worse, as seen under the article heading, "Shades of Gray." He refused to do anything useful--like attempting to actually introduce market forces into the equation--and did a number of things to make things worse.

What can't be avoided is that any real deregulation policy has to allow consumer prices to rise and fall along with all the other costs in the system. Otherwise, it's worthless.

Consumer prices are the main driver that results in conservation. Prices have to go up if energy is harder to find. If necessary, some form of subsidy (many such already exist around here) could assist customers who are in poverty or otherwise disadvantaged. This tiny minority of subsidized customers would not distort the market forces.