EDITORS: Please do not use "Pacific Gas and Electric" or "PG&E" when referring to PG&E Corporation or its National Energy Group. The PG&E National Energy Group is not the same company as Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the utility, and is not regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission. Customers of Pacific Gas and Electric Company do not have to buy products or services from the National Energy Group in order to continue to receive quality regulated services from Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

FERC ACTION LEAVES CALIFORNIANS EXPOSED TO FUTURE PRICE GOUGING

(San Francisco, CA) - "Today's order by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) leaves California electric customers exposed to price gouging and future electric supply reliability uncertainty," PG&E Corporation said.

"The California wholesale electric market is broken. And we are extremely disappointed by the insufficiency of today's FERC order," said PG&E officials.

"The remedies outlined in the order do not go nearly far enough to provide a solution that ensures reliability of the state's electric supply and, equally importantly, provides relief from future price gouging," said PG&E.

PG&E said it is particularly disappointed that FERC did not call for retroactive price refunds for California electric customers. The company also said that it was especially troubled that the Commission shortened the timeframe for the electric price cap from the end of 2002, until the end of April 2001, leaving customers exposed during the high demand summer a season.

The company said that while it is disappointed by today's FERC action, it will continue to work to create an effective solution to the state's broken wholesale electric market that ensures fair prices for customers and maintains the reliability of the state's electric system.