USA: BLACKOUT

AP: Bush Blocks Independent Blackout Investigation

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration on Tuesday moved to consolidate the investigation into the nation's worst power blackout, saying that an industry watchdog group would forgo its independent probe and work with a U.S.-Canadian task force.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a co-chair of the task force, would not speculate on what might have caused the blackout that cascaded across a vast region from Michigan to New York City last Thursday.

"It is way too early to engage in speculation about the role any (incident) might have had in the overall problem," Abraham told reporters at a news conference.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), an industry-sponsored group that monitors power grid reliability, so far has been in the forefront of the investigation. The group has pointed to problems in a number of high-voltage transmission lines in Ohio, belonging to FirstEnergy Corp., saying that is where the power cascade that led to the blackout apparently began.