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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (783)	6/27/2002 9:43:50 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Senate Reviews Enron Documents By JENNIFER COLEMAN Associated Press Writer Thursday June 27, 9:36 pm Eastern Time Senate Committee Reviews Enron Documents, LADWP Energy Trades SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Electronic documents turned over by Enron Corp. to a state committee investigating the energy crisis were incomplete, and could have been purposely altered, a computer consultant testified Thursday. The 10 compact discs were turned over in response to a subpoena by the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. But combined, the discs contained only enough data to fill two-thirds of a disc, and much of the information they contained wasn't relevant to the committee's subpoena, said Peter Sorokin, a forensic computer expert hired by the committee. For example, he said, a 20 megabyte e-mail file was completely blank. Enron later replaced that disc, but Sorokin said the new disc didn't fully comply with the subpoena. Though the committee had asked for e-mails from top Enron officials, the company's data included only 65 e-mails from former president Jeffrey Skilling and 18 e-mails from former CEO Ken Lay over a two-year period. Sorokin said some of the e-mails referred Enron employees to an offsite Internet site that is no longer operating. The committee also heard from representatives of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, who defended a "ricochet" energy transaction in 2000 that lawmakers said was similar to those outlined in recently released Enron memos. The committee released transcripts between energy traders from LADWP, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s trading arm and the Independent System Operator, the managers of the state's power grid. The November 2000 sale of 50 megawatts started at the Imperial Irrigation District, which sold the power to PG&E's trading arm, called NEG, for $50. The power was then sold to LADWP for $70, then shipped north to an interim point at the edge of the ISO's jurisdiction, then back to California, where it was eventually sold to the ISO for $250 per megawatt. In the phone calls, the NEG trader compares the transaction to "printing like, really good money." An ISO grid manager allowed one trade, then cancels it when the traders want to extend the deal for the next hour, calling it a "ricochet schedule." LADWP officials told the lawmakers that their definition of a ricochet transaction differs from the definition of the strategies in the Enron documents. "Enron hijacked the phrase ricochet," said Mark Ward, manager of wholesale trading at LADWP, adding that it was a coincidence that the same term was used in an e-mail from an NEG trader describing LADWP's trade. Enron used the term to refer to trades that took energy out of state, then sold it back to California, skirting wholesale price caps. The LADWP trade never left ISO's control area, Ward said. "We played by the rules," he said. "We didn't make profits beyond what was reasonable." Larry Drivon, the committee's outside counsel, said the transaction's net result was to take 50 megawatts from Southern California and turn increase the price from $50 to $250 before selling them to California's energy market.