(updates with blackout cost to NYC, quotes, paragraphs 8-12)
By Jackie Frank
WASHINGTON, Aug 17 (Reuters) - With electricity restored to most people hit by the worst blackout in North American history, Washington policy-makers argued on Sunday over how to to prevent such a massive failure from happening again.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham told NBC's "Meet the Press" there was "a lot of confidence" that the outages which cascaded Thursday afternoon across communities from Michigan to Connecticut and Ontario, Canada would not be repeated.
Meanwhile, the tens of millions of people affected were returning to normal life. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Wall Street should have "a normal day" on Monday.
With a joint U.S.-Canadian investigation underway, and efforts to pinpoint the cause looking at three power transmission lines near Cleveland, Ohio, the focus began to shift to what could be done to prevent a recurrence.
Appearing on several television networks, Abraham argued for swift passage by Congress of Bush's energy plan.
There is considerable disagreement over whether immediate steps to assure reliable power should be separated from the broad, controversial review of U.S. energy policy sought by Bush and now in the final stage in Congress.
Congress on Monday opens its own investigation that House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Billy Tauzin, a Republican from Louisiana, said was aimed at making sure the legislation does everything necessary to ensure electricity reliability.
The long-term cost of improvements is expected to be in the billions of dollars, which Abraham said customers will ultimately have to pay. "Ratepayers will pay the bill because they are the ones that benefit," he said on CBS.
STENCH FILLS NEW YORK STREETS
Bloomberg said at his daily briefing that the city of 8 million was back to "business as usual". But the cost to the city and its businesses could reach $750 million, city council speaker Gifford Morton said on CNN.
Power was restored on Friday after 29 hours. On Saturday, subway trains began running and stores and restaurants opened.
On Sunday morning, some streets were still littered with piles of trash bags but Bloomberg said sanitation workers had caught up with the backlog of residential garbage pickups.
Ontario urged power users to cut consumption in half to prevent rolling blackouts as the work week begins and said only employees whose work was essential for emergency purposes should report to work on Monday.
Abraham acknowledged that "we have a grid that is old," and that the United States needed to generate more electricity as well as make grid improvements and conserve more energy.
Michigan Rep. John Dingell, the senior Democrat on the House energy panel, said he favored solving the immediate crisis leaving aside for now other controversial issues such as oil and gas drilling on federal lands.
"Right now we have a crisis ... So let us commence the addressing of it, and to do so quickly," Dingell said on "Fox News Sunday."
Abraham disagreed, telling CBS, "I think that would be a huge mistake," saying the comprehensive energy bill was needed now.
But Granholm said the bottom line was reliability. "I speak for those who want to flip the switch and see the power come on. All of the technical issues about the investigation, et cetera, are lost on, I think, most Americans." (Additional reporting by Grant McCool in New York)