Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., the committee's new chairman, promised a series of hearings to examine the federal response to the electricity deregulation and the soaring prices and supply problems in California and other Western states. 
"If we ignore these problems, we put our economy at risk," said Lieberman. 
Prices have gone up so much even one of California's biggest power producers agrees some form of price control is needed to save deregulation. 
"The prices have to be perceived to be as well as actually be fair and reasonable," said Peter Cartwright, CEO of Calpine Corporation. 
The rule, reports CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews , would not be called a price control it would called "price mitigation." But to Californians who have long protested what they call inaction by FERC, the impact would be the same. 
"This is a way for them to get around the word 'price cap' or 'price-based rate' and call it 'mitigation.' That's alright with me," said Feinstein. "I don't much care what they call it as long as they get the job done." 
The Bush administration has strongly opposed such controls. 
In a meeting Tuesday with more than three dozen Republican and Democratic lawmakers from California, Vice President Dick Cheney said the administration remains opposed "to any type of price control legislation," according to those present. 
FERC's proposal, according to sources, is to expand the now limited price mitigation plan to around the clock coverage, and would cover power not just generated in California, but in all 11 states in the Western electric interconnection. 
The impact of around-the-clock mitigation will be dramatic for California consumers. When the limited plan kicked in over the last two weeks, the $300 wholesale price for power was forced down to $108. 
FERC Chairman Curt Hebert, who has also opposed price controls, calls price mitigation a success. 
"In fact prices came down the very hour the plan went into effect; $190 less than it was the hour before," Hebert says. 
the United States. 
If the vote goes as expected Monday, there is no way politically that FERC will describe this action as an extension of price mitigation, and certainly not as a classic price cap. But whatever the name, it's intended to end the price gouging Californians have felt for a year, and to mute criticism that FERC itself has been asleep. 
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said price limits would be brought up for a Senate vote later this month if FERC doesn't take additional steps to ensure prices are just and reasonable. 
"I hope that FERC will act more aggressively," Bingaman said during an energy forum Tuesday, "and we will not have to have legislation." 
The top energy adviser for California Gov. Gray Davis, S. David Freeman, said Tuesday that federal regulators must cap wholesale electricity prices to keep California from "being bled to death" during anticipated power shortages this summer. 
This year California has been paying up to 10 times what it paid for electricity in the pre-crisis period in 1999, with wholesale rates often above $300 a megawatt-hour and natural gas, which run many power plants, three times as costly as in the rest of the country.