The
California electricity crisis, also known as the
Western U.S. Energy Crisis of 2000 and 2001, was a situation in which the
United States state of
California had a shortage of
electricity supply caused by market manipulations, illegal shutdowns of pipelines by the Texas energy consortium
Enron, and capped retail electricity prices. The state suffered from multiple large-scale
blackouts, one of the state's largest energy companies collapsed, and the economic fall-out greatly harmed
Governor Gray Davis' standing.