It's about keeping San Francisco out of the power business and preserving PG&E's private monopoly. That's so perfectly in line with the Bush administration's political philosophy that we'd be stunned if PG&E and its allies weren't the ones who got that $7 million allocation snuck into the Bush budget.

All of which is, of course, an excellent reason for Congress to scrap this budget item, and it appears that will happen. But it's also reason for public power advocates to go on full alert: PG&E isn't sitting back and waiting for the next municipalization campaign. The company is making its own plans to cut public power off at the knees — and that means the progressives need to be mobilizing for a full-court press on the issue. Now. *