I finally found mention of the specific legislative and regulatory actions Sen. Phil and Wendy Gramm took on Enron's behalf.
houston.indymedia.org
...Also, there are interesting questions to ask concerning how Enron used its friends and influence to impact finance and trading regulatory powers. Tyson Slocum, policy analyst at Public Citizen, said that the nation's former leading power trader was ``completely dependent on the removal of government oversight… They needed to get government off their backs so they could do whatever they wanted, and that was their primary business strategy." Public Citizen says that Sen. Gramm pushed through commodities trading provisions as part of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. The bill included language that deregulated energy trading by excluding firms like Enron from the act's jurisdiction, and from Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight, Public Citizen said. Gramm was chairman of the Senate Banking Committee when the bill passed. Public Citizen also criticized Wendy Gramm, who pushed through regulations that exempted over-the-counter energy trading from the agency's oversight shortly before leaving the CFTC in early 1993. Five weeks after leaving the CFTC, Wendy Gramm joined Enron's board of directors and served on the board's audit committee. Wendy Gramm also directs the regulatory studies program at George Mason University, which has received $50,000 from Enron since 1996. Her academic institute is highly influential in arguing for deregulation, conveniently joining her corporate and academic interests. Her husband has received nearly $100,000 in contributions from Enron on his very own.
Wendy Graham along with Lay and a number of others have been named in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Houston accusing them of "gross fraud" and which says they gained more then a billion dollars in insider trading during the past three years involving the sale of millions of shares of Enron stock. The lawsuit seeks an immediate injunction to freeze the accounts of 29 Enron officers and directors... |
