The wholesale prices of electricity haev skyrocketed in the first few months of 2001, jumping from an average of $30 per megawatt hour last year to $330 in January. Many are pointing to the deregulation plan that former Governor Pete Wilson signed into law in 1996 as the primary cause of the current energy shortage and subsequent high energy bills that are plaguing the state of California.

Which of the following, if it could be completed, would be most beneficial in an evaluation of the voters' assessment of the cause of the California energy crisis?

A) The construction of monitoring stations on the electric grid to predict the next blackout resulting from the current shortage.

B) Comparing the current price hikes with those experienced in the last energy crisis during the oil shortage of 1970.

C) Comparing the current average price per megawatt hour in California to teh average price in states that have not undergone deregulation.

D) Comparing the effectiveness of ex-Governor Pete Wilson's energy initiatives with that of the current administration.

E) Comparing the total energy consumed by the state for the first week of January of this year with the total energy consumed in the first week of January last year.

OA- [spoiler]C Here's my question, are basic rules from econ considered too much outside knowledge? How is E wrong? Supply and demand affects price, without knowing anything about the elasticity of energy, I don't understand how choice E would be any less correct than choice C where we do not know anything about the energy policy of those other states. Thoughts?[/spoiler]