In “Fakery alleged in energy crisis” (BDN, April 13), Molly Ivins makes the case that California’s energy crisis resulted from the greed and stupidity of ruthless utility companies who manipulated the regulatory process for their own profit. No one denies that California had a grossly flawed energy deregulation scheme, but these problems are peripheral to the underlying cause of California’s crisis: exploding energy demand caused by population growth.

California’s per capita demand for electricity decreased by 5 percent over the past 20 years, but in the same period California’s population grew by more than 10.6 million. According to the Census Bureau, more than 95 percent of California’s population growth in the l990s resulted directly from mass immigration.

Obviously, California taxpayers must build new energy plants, and its going to cost money regardless of who owns or operates them. This is the price you pay for building your economy on cheap foreign labor and massive population growth. But this is one hornet’s nest that not even Molly Ivins will touch with a 10-foot pole.

A vital first step toward a long-term solution to the energy crisis is for Congress to enact an all-inclusive cap on immigration of l00,000 per year. This number can be increased at a later date when we have determined what level of population growth we want. But in any case, the American public deserves to have this discussion and make this decision for themselves.

How much longer are we going to go on like mindless robots: digging and drilling, and building new plants? This is absurd.

Jonette Christian

Holden