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SACRAMENTO — President Bush extended emergency orders Tuesday keeping electricity and natural gas flowing to California as blackouts threatened and state spending on emergency power mounted. 

The orders, which direct energy suppliers to sell to the state despite fears about utility solvency, were initially issued by the Clinton administration and had been due to expire at midnight. 

State officials said they were “burning through” a $400 million fund California is using to buy electricity from wholesalers on behalf its two largest utilities, both nearly bankrupt. More than $113 million has been spent since last Thursday. 

“Everyone knows the clock is ticking,” Davis spokesman Steve Maviglio said. 

Adding to the drama, power grid officials narrowly avoided blackouts at least twice Tuesday, including outages that could have hit during the morning and evening rush hours in San Francisco and other Northern California cities.  

The Independent System Operator said the supply would remain tight through the evening. 

Overnight, grid officials bought 1,000 megawatts from suppliers in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Hours later, those sellers canceled their promise to keep the power flowing as hydroelectric capacity in their regions began to wane and demand increased. 

“They don’t have it to give,” ISO spokesman Patrick Dorinson said. “We’re watching the ramp now for any changes and doing the delicate dance as well as we can.” 

A Stage 3 alert – with reserves near or below 1.5 percent – was expected to remain in effect all day for the eighth straight day. 

Bush’s extension of the emergency orders – in effect for at least two weeks – came as time starts running out for California lawmakers to find a solution to the energy crisis. 

The state already has spent more than one-quarter of the $400 million allocated to buy power from wholesalers who are refusing to sell to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. The fund, created under a law signed by Davis last Thursday, was meant to keep lights burning for about 10 days. 

Spending started slowly, “but now we’re burning through it and it’s increasing on a daily basis,” said Assemblyman Fred Keeley. 

As the Davis administration began accepting bids from electricity suppliers Tuesday, lawmakers continued negotiating details of measures that would put the state into the power-buying business for perhaps a decade or longer. 

One key plan would let the state sign long-term contracts with electricity wholesalers at lower prices than the state or utilities are paying now, and sell that power directly to consumers using Edison’s and PG&E’s infrastructures. 

Other proposals would have the utilities donate their hydroelectric plants or transmission systems to the state in exchange for continued state power-buying and halve the price Edison and PG&E pay for expensive alternative energy such as solar and wind power. 

Officials anxiously awaited the results of the special electricity auction, conducted by sealed bid. 

California is asking power producers for contracts from six months to 10 years to try to restore stability to the power system and financial solvency to the investor-owned utilities ravaged by the state’s botched deregulation. The bids will not be known until Wednesday. 

“There is a great deal of anxiety,” said Keeley, exhausted by negotiations that began last Friday. “I know that the Legislature has no appetite for any further general fund money being appropriated for this purpose.” 

If the bids are affordable an end to the crisis is in sight, the Boulder Creek Democrat said. 

“If they come in high, we’re going to be scrambling,” Keeley said. 

ISO officials urged consumers to “make conservation a way of life.” 

And in San Francisco, Mayor Willie Brown ordered city departments to cut electricity and natural gas use 5 percent by summer. 

Stage 3 alerts were likely through the week until California power plants shut down for maintenance resume operation. 

The state lost the ability to save as much as 300 megawatts – enough to illuminate 300,000 homes – Monday night when PG&E reached the annual limit of hours it can shut off power to “interruptible” customers. Those businesses agree to outages during times of scarce supply in exchange for lower rates. 

In addition, a key hydroelectric plant near Fresno was low on water; a transmission glitch in Oregon persisted; and offers to sell the state electricity were lower than expected. 

PG&E, which serves much of Northern California including San Francisco, is asking the owners of large office buildings to dim lights and reduce elevator service to save power. 

A tight supply, high demand, high wholesale prices and the financial shakiness of the state’s two biggest utilities have pushed California into its hour-by-hour search for electricity and resulted in two days with rolling blackouts last week. 

The problems are blamed on California’s 1996 utility deregulation law, which required the state’s investor-owned utilities to sell their power plants and buy wholesale power, but capped the rates they can charge customers. SoCal Edison and PG&E say they’ve lost more than $10 billion. 

Keeley said his plan would buy time for the two utilities to restore their credit while lawmakers work on long-term solutions to the state’s botched deregulation laws. 

He acknowledged the contracts could put the state in the power business for upward of a decade, but said energy providers would need several years to make a profit at the lower prices.