USD Magazine, Summer 2001

BY MICHAEL R. HASl'iINS PHOTOS BY RODNEY NAl'iAMOTD

Lynn Schenk spent three decades in the corridors of power, but her biggest challenge came when the lights went out in California.

fter a term in Congress, stints as special A assistant co vice presidents Nelson 1 private law practice, you'd think Lynn Schenk would know a whole lot about power. Not half as much, it turns out, as she thought she did. When the electrical power crisis hit California last year, the 1970 USD School of Law graduate, now chief of staff for California Gov. Gray Davis, arranged her own crash course in the literal kind of power. She talked endlessly co providers, consumers and conservationists, learning how energy is produced, transmitted and used. She studied federal and state regulations, power plant construction plans, transmission strategies and supply projections, all in an effort co find a solution co the state's sudden energy woes. "We needed a strategy," she says, "and it rook months just co understand what we were up against. Every day there was something new impacting the issue." The state's energy problems came co a head last year. Poorly planned deregulation of the electricity industry, combined with low supplies and high demand, led co skyrocketing prices and periodic blackouts. Confronted with millions of angry, scared and, in some cases, finan– cially strapped energy cusromers, the governor had co find a way co fix the problem. Fast. Schenk was the natural choice ro lead the effort. The crisis first broke in San Diego, where she had been an atrorney for San Diego Gas and Electric early in her career, was a port district commissioner overseeing harbor development, and won a seat in Congress. Using her knowledge of the industry and her high-level contacts in Washingron and Sacran1ent0, Schenk navigated through an atmosphere polluted by accusations of price gouging, political partisanship and regularory incompetence co foster an environment where industry, government and consumers could work rogether. Rockefeller and Walter Mondale, a high- level cabinet position in the administration of California Gov. Jerry Brown and years of

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USD MAGAZINE