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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (418187)	6/24/2003 4:52:48 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

Enron.....hmmmmm Enron....yes..yes....it is coming to me.... ENRON, CLINTON AND THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid January 24, 2002 Receive FREE updates by email: Back to Main Page -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NBC News reporter David Gregory admits that while Enron gave President Bush and Republicans big contributions, there’s no evidence they got anything for their money. That’s certainly the case with Bush and the global warming treaty. Enron was a big backer of the treaty, also called the Kyoto Protocol, and yet Bush has abandoned it because of questions about the science behind the theory and the cost. So it turns out that the company we are led to believe was exercising influence over the Bush Administration through campaign contributions doesn’ t have any influence at all on this issue. This fact makes a mockery of implications that Bush did the bidding of Enron. In an April 23 article in Business Week, Paul Raeburn noted that "big corporate names" were disagreeing with Bush on global warming. One of them was identified as Enron. Enron became a member of the International Climate Change Partnership and the Pew Center’s Business Environmental Leadership Council. These companies bowed to environmental demands to endorse the treaty. At the same time, Enron was involved in a United Nations conference to develop Communist China’s coal resources. The Washington Post described some of Enron’s lobbying on behalf of the treaty in a January 13 article. Reporter Dan Morgan said Enron chairman Kenneth Lay, a member of President Clinton’s Council on Sustainable Development, had a meeting with Clinton and Vice President Gore where he advocated a "market-based" approach to the problem of global warming." This was a strategy identified in an Enron memo as "good for Enron stock." Morgan added, "The Clinton administration’s interest in an international agreement to combat global warming also dovetailed with Enron’s business plans. Enron officials envisioned the company at the center of a new trading system, in which industries worldwide could buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. Such a system would curtail the use of inefficient coal-fired power plants that emitted large amounts of carbon dioxide, while encouraging new investments in gas-fired plants and pipelines – precisely Enron’s line of business." Morgan added that Enron officials were elated with the Kyoto Protocol and said it would "do more to promote Enron’s business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries…" The radical environmentalists claimed Enron, which staged many "Earth Day" activities, as a true friend. At a dinner in Kyoto during treaty negotiations, Enron chairman Lay was given an award by the Climate Institute. Enron also received an award from the EPA. Writing in the journal of the Hoover Institution, Bruce Yandle noted that Enron endorsed President Clinton’s $6.3 billion plan to fight global warming by subsidizing the production and purchase of renewable energy and related technologies. Yandle added, "Kyoto-justified taxpayer subsidies will make life easier for firms like Enron." Clinton gave them the subsidies in exchange for campaign contributions. Bush gave them nothing.

To: American Spirit who wrote (418187)	6/24/2003 4:54:13 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

More Enron: Enron: Courting Clinton and the Environmentalists By Marc Morano CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer March 19, 2002 (Editor's Note: This is the second of a three part series detailing some of the Enron Corporation's ties to the Clinton Administration between 1992 and 2000.) (CNSNews.com)- Enron Corporation benefited from an eight year relationship with the Clinton administration and used that clout to successfully lobby for tax credits, subsidies and other favorable legislation, according to documents obtained by CNSNews.com and authenticated by the company. And while Congressional Democrats try to link the now-bankrupt corporation with the Bush administration and the Republican Party, there is evidence that Enron actually aligned itself with the environmental lobby, which put the company squarely at odds with most of the GOP on climate change issues. While touting its relationship with militant environmental groups including Greenpeace, Enron worked to strengthen and preserve certain funding programs that helped finance hundreds of billions of dollars in Enron projects around the world during the years Bill Clinton was in the White House, documents show. In fact in 1997, Enron joined forces with the Clinton administration to defend the federal Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) from budget cuts in Congress. The agency had provided Enron with both funding and, in 1996, $200 million in "political risk insurance" for Enron's Dabhol Power plant in India, which had also been funded in large part by OPIC. In efforts to save the agency from cuts, OPIC President Ruth R. Harkin announced the Clinton administration was solidly behind the agency and would not allow it to be the victim of budget cuts, according to the March 19, 1997 edition of The Oil Daily, an industry publication. That month, Harkin requested a three-year, $9 billion increase in the agency's contingent liability cap to aid U.S. corporations, and Enron Senior Vice President for Global Affairs Linda F. Powers warned that if OPIC did not receive sufficient funding, the U.S. economy would suffer, according to The Oil Daily. "If programs like OPIC were not available, we would have no choice but to move our sourcing to other countries where financing is available," Powers stated on March 18, 1997 to the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Economic Policy and Trade. But another witness testified before the same committee that OPIC was nothing more than a "corporate welfare agency." Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste stated that OPIC was only benefiting corporations at the expense of American taxpayers. A follow-up memo dated Sept. 17, 1997 from Enron Vice President Joe Hillings and Vice President of Global Project Finance John Hardy, noted that both the Senate and House had passed the appropriations bill for OPIC, but it was awaiting authorization in the House International Relations Committee. The memo expressed frustration with House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas) for not making the OPIC bill a "first tier priority," but noted that the House Congressional Black Caucus "was helpful in the consideration of the OPIC appropriation," and that Black Caucus members felt "Africa deserves more attention in export financing." Kyoto Protocol is Good for Enron The Kyoto Protocol on climate change represented an opportunity for Enron to make a profit, because the carbon dioxide requirements of the treaty dovetailed with numerous corporate projects that emitted less CO2 and other greenhouse gasses. Vice President Al Gore championed the Kyoto Protocol, which would have required 40 industrialized nations to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2012. Toward realizing that opportunity, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay applauded Clinton's support for the Kyoto Protocol in an Oct. 22, 1997 corporate statement, calling it "a comprehensive, yet realistic, program that starts to move the United States and the world toward minimizing carbon dioxide emissions." Lay liked the emission targets and incentives to develop new energy and environmental technology as well as the "carbon dioxide trading program." Enron was invested in both natural gas energy alternatives and wind power technologies, both of which fit the profile of what the Kyoto Protocol demanded, and the company needed little prodding when it came time to support the global warming treaty. John Palmisano, senior director for environmental policy and compliance at Enron, wrote in a Dec. 12, 1997 internal memo regarding Kyoto, that "if implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron's business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States." In the memo, Palmisano also promoted the carbon emissions trading provisions in the Kyoto treaty and said the "additional demand for renewable technology is enormous." "Enron has immediate business opportunities which derive directly from this agreement," he wrote. Palmisano envisioned that the Clinton administration would be receptive to any of Enron's policy goals. "I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of the agreement," Palmisano declared. He then wrote that the Kyoto Protocol represented a victory for Enron's lobbying efforts. "The endorsement of joint implementation within [the Protocol] is exactly what I have been lobbying for and it seems like we won," Palmisano wrote. "The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us." Palmisano praised the carbon trading with "transitional economies" because "this means that Enron projects in Russia, Bulgaria, Romania or other eastern countries can be monitized (sic) ..." Enron Trumpets Inroads With Greens Besides enjoying a close relationship with the Clinton administration, Enron also cultivated friends in the environmental movement. Palmisano, in the Dec. 12, 1997 memo, boasted that because of its support for climate change treaties, "Enron now has excellent credentials with many 'green' interests including Greenpeace, [World Wildlife Fund], [Natural Resources Defense Council], German Watch, the U.S. Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI, and Worldwatch." Palmisano continued, "This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monitized). (Parenthetically, I heard many times people refer to Enron in glowing terms. Such praise went like this: 'Other companies should be like Enron, seeking out 21st century business opportunities' or 'Progressive companies like Enron are ...' or 'Proof of the viability of market-based energy and environmental programs is Enron's success in power and [sulfur dioxide] trading.') He ended the memo regarding the Kyoto Protocol by stating, "I predict business opportunities within 18 months." The final line reads, "This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!" (sic) Enron also used its "excellent credentials" with environmental groups to help lobby the Clinton administration for tax breaks on development of wind energy technologies. A Nov. 3, 1999 Enron statement boasted that the environmental group, "National Audubon Society today praised Enron Wind Corp." for an agreement to re-locate a wind-powered generating facility to accommodate an endangered species. According to the statement, "the agreement directly benefits the California condor recovery effort while facilitating a wind power project that would provide green energy to the Los Angeles area." But the Audubon Society did not only publicly praise Enron. It also engaged in lobbying for tax breaks to benefit the company. "The National Audubon Society has also announced that it unconditionally supports the Wind Energy Protection Tax Credit and will seek to convince legislators to pass the measure," Audubon Society Sr. Vice President Dan Beard said in a statement. Further evidence of Enron's ties to environmentalists was revealed when Lay used a meeting of the environmental group Nature Conservancy to announce new wind power initiatives, according to a Nov. 18, 1997 Enron statement. In announcing the wind power program, Lay told the group, "The cost of entry for companies to make the claim to be environmentally friendly is their commitment to add incremental generation of renewable energy."

To: American Spirit who wrote (418187)	6/24/2003 4:55:39 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

MO Enron... Enron and the Clinton Administration: Ties That Bind By Marc Morano CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer March 18, 2002 (Editor's Note: This is the first of a three part series detailing some of the Enron Corporation's ties to the Clinton Administration between 1992 and 2000.) (CNSNews.com) - While Capitol Hill Democrats have been trying with limited success to tie the Bush administration to the energy conglomerate Enron Corporation, the now-bankrupt firm actively cultivated a long-term relationship with the Clinton administration, according to documents obtained by CNSNews.com and authenticated by the company. The seeds of the relationship were planted even before Bill Clinton was sworn in as president, and lasted until the final months of his administration. The documents also show the company and the Clinton administration sought to use each other to promote their respective agendas, both in Congress and abroad. While the documentation gives no indication of any illegal activities, it does paint a picture of an American corporate giant seeking to influence an administration and exploit its policies, while entertaining the prospect of using its corporate clout to advance Clinton administration initiatives. The Seeds of a Relationship Sown Enron Corporation saw the opportunity to exploit the newly minted Clinton administration even before Clinton was sworn into office, and saw 1992 campaign issues including investment tax credits and restrictions on carbon dioxide (CO2) as beneficial to the company. According to the November 1992 edition of the Enron corporate newsletter, 'To The Point,' the company looked forward to dealing with the upcoming Clinton administration. The newsletter noted, "Senator [Al] Gore has been an avid proponent of a strong global warming policy" that would lower greenhouse gas emissions, and the Enron communique noted that Clinton and Gore's support of restrictions on CO2 emissions "should provide a real opportunity for natural gas." Enron stood to benefit from any government restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions because the company had ownership or financial stake in numerous natural gas and wind power technologies, which produce little or no greenhouse gas emissions. The company often described itself as "a major supplier of solar and wind renewable energy worldwide," and Enron also praised the newly elected Democrats for their "plans to aggressively convert government and other vehicles to alternate fuels, mainly natural gas." The November 1992 newsletter also praised the Clinton campaign's economic policies, including its proposed investment tax credit, which the newsletter stated "would be beneficial to Enron and the natural gas industry," by facilitating lower costs for future Enron projects. Enron even praised Clinton for his proposed health care plan, which ultimately died in the Democratic-controlled Congress in 1994. "Anything the new administration can do to control health costs will be of tremendous value to Enron and the nation," the newsletter noted. Enron Feeds at Government Trough Enron's ability to harness feelings of goodwill with Clinton's new team bore fruit in short order. By 1995, Enron was able to successfully secure financing for the Dabhol Power plant in India with loans from the U.S. Export-Import Bank totaling $298 million dollars to cover about 32 percent of the costs. Enron's ownership stake was 80 percent in the Indian power plant. Enron was able to secure another $100 million in investment money from the U.S. federal agency, Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). In 1996, the investment corporation provided another $200 million dollars in "political risk insurance" for the India project, according to OPIC documents. But Enron's relationship with the Clinton administration was not a one-way street, and top corporate officials lent their aide to the president. Former Enron Chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay wrote a personal letter to Clinton in 1995, supporting the president's budget proposal in Congress. The letter, dated June 27th and blind copied to Clinton senior advisor Mack McLarty, Enron Vice President Joe Hillings and Enron Senior Vice President of Environmental & Government Relations Terry Thorn, was sent at the height of the budget battle with the newly elected Republican-controlled 104th Congress. "I applaud your political courage and leadership in supporting a balanced federal budget," Lay wrote. "The debate should be about budget priorities and timing, not whether a commitment should be made to fiscal responsibility." After offering his opinions on how to limit federal spending, Lay ended by writing, "I believe the American public will look kindly upon your leadership to bring closure on this vital issue." Later that year, Clinton administration officials helped Enron during the company's negotiations over a natural gas project in Mozambique. The top negotiator on the gas project for Mozambique was Minister of Mineral Resources John Kachamila, who complained of "outright threats to withhold development funds if we didn't sign," with Enron. Kachamila said U.S. diplomats, "especially [U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission] Mike McKinley, pressured me to sign a deal that was not good for Mozambique. He was not a neutral diplomat," according to the Houston Chronicle. The Clinton administration's U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was also reportedly involved in the pressuring of Mozambique to sign the deal with Enron. USAID is especially powerful because of the volume of money it pumps into the developing world. Mozambique was receiving over $40 million dollars during this time from USAID. Enron Entertains Favors for Clinton Administration In an Oct. 15, 1996 memo from John Palmisano, senior director for environmental policy and compliance at Enron, it was noted that the Clinton administration sought the company's help in gaining support from China and India for proposed climate change regulations. Palmisano's memo, which was sent to Thorn, Hillings and a variety of other Enron corporate officials and lobbyists, noted, "the Administration is concerned about getting China and India into the family of nations committed to both carbon emissions trading concepts. "We have been asked how we can help in this regard and how natural gas might be part of [joint implementation] activities in China," Palmisano wrote in the memo. Joint implementation involves a wealthier "donor" country that invests in pollution reduction measures in a "host" country in exchange for "credits," which the donor nation may use to meet its own pollution reduction targets. The Palmisano memo was written following meetings in Washington, D.C. with Clinton administration officials. Palmisano's memorandum indicated he had met with several representatives of Clinton's Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the State Department and the Office of Management and Budget. The memo continued, "there seems to be an opportunity to get Administration support, and maybe money, to identify natural gas related activities in China that link to climate change in general and joint implementation in particular. I was approached twice during last week on this issue." Palmisano bluntly sought guidance from his colleagues at Enron when he asked, "Does anyone have a notion as to how I should follow up?" Enron also entertained requests on helping the Clinton administration move its climate change agenda on the domestic front.

To: American Spirit who wrote (418187)	6/24/2003 4:58:03 PM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 769670

and CLINTO/ENRON???? Clinton Enron Nexus Clinton Administration Procured Credit for Enron, Used CIA as Resource for Enron As I see the usual suspects in the media trying to manufacture a scandal over Enron involving the Bush administration based solely on association, I have to laugh. Clinton and his administration were intimately involved with Enron and Enron CEO Ken Lay during the Clinton years. Lay acted as a political ally for Clinton, collaborating with him to try and pass Fast Track (they failed) and on implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. Lay turns out to be an old friend of close Clinton aid Mack McClarty. The Clinton Commerce Department under Ron Brown accompanied Enron officials on various overseas junkets and trade missions. The Commerce Department was an active partner with Enron in acquiring overseas contracts for Enron, in India and China for example. The Clinton administration was instrumental in lining up credit for Enron in these deals and used CIA resources to assess project risk and analyze the strategies of Enron's competitors. Here are some citations and quotes. Keep this and shut up all the democrats and leftists screaming about this pseudo scandal. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- August 1993. New President Bill Clinton takes his first vacation, a ski weekend to Vail, Colorado. Who shows up to visit with Clinton? Ken Lay, Enron CEO. The Houston Chronicle August 16, 1993, Monday, 2 STAR Edition SECTION: A; Pg. 5 HEADLINE: Clinton takes real vacation BYLINE: GREG McDONALD; Staff DATELINE: VAIL, Colorado (excerpt) A tired-looking Clinton, off on his first real vacation since becoming president, seemed reluctant Saturday morning to admit to reporters that he was having a good time. He kept mumbling stuff about health care being the next big ticket item on his domestic agenda. But by evening, he'd had such a good time on the local links with Ford, golf legend Jack Nicklaus and Houston's own Ken Lay, chairman of the Enron Corp. and one of George Bush's best pals, that he decided to stay over until today. Clinton, his face sunburned but beaming, told reporters that he and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and 13-year-old daughter Chelsea were having too good a time to leave Sunday as planned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1994 - 1995 Clinton Administration "makes a sale" for Enron. Enron and the administration work together to win Enron the contract for a power plant in India. Clinton uses resources from the CIA to assess risk and analyze the strategy of Enron's British competitor. The administration is instrumental in procuring $400 million in financing from the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation. The New York Times February 19, 1995, Sunday, Late Edition - Final SECTION: Section 3; Page 1; Column 2; Business/Financial Desk HEADLINE: How Washington Inc. Makes a Sale BYLINE: By DAVID E. SANGER DATELINE: WASHINGTON (excerpt) For 18 months, the Indian power-plant deal has floated near the top of the list of 100 or so big infrastructure projects around the world that the United States Government desperately wants American firms to win. It is the first of eight big power generation projects in India, and if the American consortium could close this one, it would create a precedent likely to give other American companies an advantage in billions of dollars of follow-on deals. In years past, American officials would have offered some modest help, but only as a sideshow to bigger foreign policy concerns, from containing Communist influence in South Asia to keeping India and Pakistan from accelerating their nuclear arms race. But that was another era in American foreign policy, before the Commerce Department built what Jeffrey E. Garten, the undersecretary of commerce for international trade, calls "our economic war room." From that Washington war room, the negotiators for the Enron Corporation, the lead bidder in the American consortium, have been shadowed and assisted by a startling array of Government agencies. In a carefully-planned assault, the State and Energy Departments pressed the firms' case. The American ambassador to India, Frank G. Wisner, constantly cajoled Indian officials. The Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary, brought in delegations of other executives -- including some last week -- to make the point that more American investment is in the wings if the conditions are right. To sweeten the pot, the Export-Import Bank of the United States and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation put together $400 million in financing. And working just behind the scenes, as it often does these days, was the Central Intelligence Agency, assessing the risks of the project and scoping out the the competitive strategies of Britain and other countries that want a big chunk of the Indian market. The big push by Washington Inc. paid off last month when the Indian government awarded the power plant project to the American consortium. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 1995. Bill Clinton recruits Ken Lay to act as a point man for Clinton in drumming up support for Fast Track legislation. Lay just happens to be an old friend of Mack McClarty. Journal of Commerce October 10, 1995, Tuesday SECTION: FOREIGN TRADE, Pg. 3A HEADLINE: OUTSIDERS CALLED IN TO END LOGJAM ON TRADE AUTHORITY BYLINE: JOHN MAGGS; Journal of Commerce Staff DATELINE: WASHINGTON (excerpt) Two distinguished political doctors have been brought in to try to revive a nearly dead bill allowing President Clinton to secure new trade agreements with other nations. Bill Frenzel, a former Republican member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Ken Lay, chief executive of natural-gas giant Enron Corp., have been called in to break a year-long impasse that has blocked meaningful progress on trade pacts with Chile, the rest of Latin America, and the Pacific im. Both men are well known to one player in that dispute - Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, R-Texas, whose district includes Enron's headquarters in Houston. The two also have connections to the Clinton administration. Mr. Frenzel served as a special adviser to Mr. Clinton to lobby his former colleagues on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mr Lay has been a friend of Clinton adviser Thomas "Mac" McLarty since Mr. McLarty's time as head of Arkansas' largest natural-gas utility. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- August 1997 Clinton hosts Ken Lay at White House to discuss upcoming meeting in Kyoto, Japan concerning greenhouse gas. The Houston Chronicle August 6, 1997, Wednesday, 3 STAR Edition SECTION: BUSINESS; Business Digest; Pg. 1 HEADLINE: BRIEFCASE; White House warms to BP exec BYLINE: Staff (full text) The Clinton administration, when calling business leaders to the White House to discuss what the United States' bargaining position on global warming should be at upcoming negotiations in Kyoto, Japan, chose John Browne of British Petroleum to represent the oil industry. But Browne is British, head of a London-based company. And Britain's new Labor government has blasted the United States for failing to go far enough to reduce greenhouse gases. So why was a Brit asked to participate? Browne has broken ranks with other oil executives to concede a buildup of carbon dioxide gases may be changing the Earth's climate. BP also happens to be the United States' largest crude oil producer with 13,000 employees in this country, company officials pointed out. Enron Corp.Chief Executive Ken Lay, who also was at the Monday meeting, said Clinton sounded Browne out on his opinions of the policies being pushed by the Europeans. Nobody seemed to worry the United States was tipping its hand. ""This is kind of early in the process,'' Lay said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- October 2000 Near end of Clinton's Presidency, but prior to the November election, a Clinton Assistant Treasury Secretary takes a position at Enron as vice president for federal government affairs. Observers call it a slap in the face to George Bush. The Washington Post October 12, 2000, Thursday, Final Edition SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A23; SPECIAL INTERESTS HEADLINE: Enron Hire Faces Some Partisan Fire BYLINE: Judy Sarasohn (excerpt) Enron announced yesterday that Linda Robertson, assistant Treasury secretary for legislative affairs and public liaison, will join the Houston energy company in early November as vice president for federal government affairs. She will replace Joe Hillings, who earlier announced his retirement. Ken Lay, chairman and chief executive of Enron, has given more than $ 290,000 of his own money to the Republican Party this year to help elect Bush, his longtime friend, president. But that didn't insulate Enron from criticism in some Republican quarters on Capitol Hill. "Enron has just slapped George W. Bush across the face. It just makes little sense," a GOP leadership aide said yesterday.

To: American Spirit who wrote (418187)	6/24/2003 5:46:51 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

siliconinvestor.com Sure wouldn't want you to miss that. At a dinner in Kyoto during treaty negotiations, Enron chairman Lay was given an award by the Climate Institute. Enron also received an award from the EPA. Writing in the journal of the Hoover Institution, Bruce Yandle noted that Enron endorsed President Clinton’s $6.3 billion plan to fight global warming by subsidizing the production and purchase of renewable energy and related technologies. Yandle added, "Kyoto-justified taxpayer subsidies will make life easier for firms like Enron." Clinton gave them the subsidies in exchange for campaign contributions. ............................................................................................................................................................... Vice President Al Gore championed the Kyoto Protocol, which would have required 40 industrialized nations to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2012. Toward realizing that opportunity, Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay applauded Clinton's support for the Kyoto Protocol in an Oct. 22, 1997 corporate statement, calling it "a comprehensive, yet realistic, program that starts to move the United States and the world toward minimizing carbon dioxide emissions." Lay liked the emission targets and incentives to develop new energy and environmental technology as well as the "carbon dioxide trading program." Enron was invested in both natural gas energy alternatives and wind power technologies, both of which fit the profile of what the Kyoto Protocol demanded, and the company needed little prodding when it came time to support the global warming treaty. John Palmisano, senior director for environmental policy and compliance at Enron, wrote in a Dec. 12, 1997 internal memo regarding Kyoto, that "if implemented, this agreement will do more to promote Enron's business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States." In the memo, Palmisano also promoted the carbon emissions trading provisions in the Kyoto treaty and said the "additional demand for renewable technology is enormous." "Enron has immediate business opportunities which derive directly from this agreement," he wrote. Palmisano envisioned that the Clinton administration would be receptive to any of Enron's policy goals. "I do not think it is possible to overestimate the importance of this year in shaping every aspect of the agreement," Palmisano declared. He then wrote that the Kyoto Protocol represented a victory for Enron's lobbying efforts. ............................................................................................................................................................. Enron also used its "excellent credentials" with environmental groups to help lobby the Clinton administration for tax breaks on development of wind energy technologies. A Nov. 3, 1999 Enron statement boasted that the environmental group, "National Audubon Society today praised Enron Wind Corp." for an agreement to re-locate a wind-powered generating facility to accommodate an endangered species. According to the statement, "the agreement directly benefits the California condor recovery effort while facilitating a wind power project that would provide green energy to the Los Angeles area." But the Audubon Society did not only publicly praise Enron. It also engaged in lobbying for tax breaks to benefit the company. "The National Audubon Society has also announced that it unconditionally supports the Wind Energy Protection Tax Credit and will seek to convince legislators to pass the measure," Audubon Society Sr. Vice President Dan Beard said in a statement. That's just from the first two of PROLIFE's article. I certainly wouldn't want to overwork you. And there's still a point you DON'T WANT TO TOUCH: Pay-To-Play still had no business getting the state involved.