Calif. energy broker sees conservation as Jewish cause

Friday, March 2, 2001 | by

JOE ESKENAZI

David Freeman's father fixed broken umbrellas. He fixes broken utility providers.

Raised in an Orthodox Jewish household in Chattanooga, Tenn., Freeman has an impressive resumé. The 75-year-old has righted the fiscally and environmentally sinking ships of the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, to name a few.

"Well, either I must be the luckiest SOB on Earth, because I've managed to turn things around more than twice, or I think I begin to present a case for knowing what the hell I'm doing," said Freeman.

Last month, the Los Angeles resident was tapped by Gov. Gray Davis to negotiate with power providers to obtain as much juice for the state as he can for $10 billion. "This is by far the biggest difficulty I've been a part of," he said.

The Herculean task required him to take an indefinite leave of absence in mid-February from his "day job" heading the L.A. Department of Water and Power. Under Freeman's leadership, the department didn't "go down the road of deregulation," he said. Instead, it retained its power plants, becoming an "island of lights in a sea of flickering lights."

Addressing a Los Angeles B'nai B'rith gathering in December, Freeman joked that he had helped to foster good will between the area's Christians and Jews.

"Hey, I kept the Christmas lights on," quipped Freeman, who still speaks with a thick Southern accent. "But then I suggested that maybe they should realize they're using Arab oil to light their menorahs with."

Freeman, who has long been an advocate of environmental responsibility and accountability to taxpayers and ratepayers, was profoundly affected by the experience of growing up as a minority in the Deep South.

During Christian Bible class in the Tennessee public schools, Freeman went to study hall instead. And while Freeman says he didn't feel personally discriminated against, he couldn't say the same about his black friends and neighbors.

As a young man, Freeman joined blacks at sit-ins at white-only Knoxville lunch counters. He headed to Washington in the early 1960s with hopes of becoming a civil rights lawyer, but his dreams were dashed when Justice Department officials decided his heavy Southern accent would cause him to be seen as "a traitor" to white, Southern juries. Instead, Freeman landed a job at the Federal Power Commission, beginning the career that has made him quite literally California's biggest power broker.

A former energy adviser to Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter, Freeman says that the energy crisis, responsible power consumption and alternative energy sources are all issues that should carry particular weight within the Jewish community.

"Jewish people especially should realize that over half of our oil is imported. Our policy toward Israel is, in a very real way, influenced by our dependence on oil from Arab nations," he said. "I must say that Jewish people ought to get interested in the energy issue from the point of view of advocating that we have laws mandating better mileage in cars, electric cars or at least hybrid electric. We have to get off oil."

Finishing his point with a flourish, Freeman added, "Somebody that makes a major contribution to Israel while driving an SUV is contradicting themselves, in my opinion."

With an eye on the current energy crunch, Freeman describes California's adoption of electrical deregulation as a mess the state made for itself and will have to solve for itself. The "serious crisis" will be remedied only by the construction of additional power plants and a massive conservation effort, he said.

As for spiraling natural gas prices, however, Freeman accuses the federal government of turning a blind eye to profiteering.

"They ought to go back to fixing the prices on a cost basis. Today, these gonivim [thieves] are charging $15 to $20 per 1,000 cubic feet just for transporting the gas from Texas to California," he said. "That costs a dollar on cost basis.

"This is highway robbery, there's no excuse for it. Those pipelines are for bringing money from California and the rest of the country into Texas. I think people are not sufficiently aware of or angry about the natural gas situation. To me, it's just as outrageous as the electric side."