...implications for their stock prices. Legislators Sunday said they were looking at ways to protect against the cash-strapped utilities failing to pay the state for its power -- possibly by making the companies put up plants or property as collateral...

...few days. Davis called on the Legislature to authorize a longer-term plan to buy power and provide it to the cash-strapped utilities. If such legislation isn't adopted, the governor said, several power suppliers have threatened to call in...

...demand. The third supplier, Houston-based Reliant Energy Services Inc., said it feared the state's two big cash-strapped utilities would never pay for the power it was supplying. Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gov. Gray Davis' multibillion-dollar plan to rescue cash-strapped utilities and end California's energy crisis was met with skepticism from power generators and consumer activists. "Any solution must...

...should renegotiate the contracts or force generators to give up some of what they are owed by the state's three cash-strapped utilities, Florio said. Davis' senior energy adviser, S. David Freeman, said the state has no plans to renegotiate...

...Davis signed emergency legislation Friday allocating $400 million in state funds to buy power and provide it to cash-strapped utilities. However, lawmakers acknowledged it that was only a "Band-Aid" solution expected to provide the state with...

...budget surplus, which is being drained of $40 million to $50 million a day as the state buys power for the cash-strapped utilities. Since the crisis began, more than $4.2 billion in taxpayer money has been spent to keep the lights on...