31.   The pact also settles an issue involving wholesale power contracts, reducing the amount APS pays for SRP-generated power.

32.   The ruling applied only to the distribution of wholesale power and thus did not break the monopoly hold that utilities have over residential customers.

33.   The state, particularly Gov. Gray Davis, has accused the generators of gouging it on the wholesale power market.

34.   The utilities, forced to sell off their natural gas plants, in turn profited from cheap wholesale power sold at higher fixed rates to their customers.

35.   The utilities have had to absorb billions of dollars in losses due to sky-high wholesale power rates.

36.   The utilities have been barred by law from passing high wholesale power costs on to customers.

37.   There is a danger that wholesale power markets could effectively dry up if retail markets, controlled by state officials, also fail to respond to supply and demand.

38.   When wholesale power costs started skyrocketing last summer, rate caps protected consumers but prevented the utilities from recovering costs.

39.   AES owns power-generating plants around the world and sells wholesale power in bulk.

40.   At the same time, wholesale power costs have been soaring, in large part because of skyrocketing prices for natural gas.