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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DavesM who wrote (18635)	5/24/2005 8:49:33 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 361354

White House influence Throughout his career, Enron has been the single largest contributor to George W. Bush's multiple campaigns. From 1993 to 2001, associates of Enron as well as the company's Political Action Committee gave more than $700,000 to Bush. For Bush's nominating convention in 2000, Enron gave $200,000 to the Republican national Committee. See: fec.gov opensecrets.org When George W. Bush moved onto 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, his friend since the 1980s and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay was given a position on the Bush transition team where he worked along with Dick Cheney in helping to develop national energy policies. In fact, some 50 former Enron executives, lobbyists, lawyers or large shareholders ended up working in the Bush Administration. For example, Bush's former chief economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey and the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick both served on Enron's advisory board. See: beaufortgazette.com Between 1989 and 2001, Enron and its employees gave more than $5.95 million in hard and soft money contributions to federal candidates and parties. Of these, nearly three-quarters went to the Republican party. One of the largest beneficiaries of this money was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay along with his political network, which have collected over $200,000 in Enron's money. According to the National Journal, DeLay's connections to Enron are so strong that some call him "the congressman from Enron." See: rollcall.com, 02/25/02 (subscription required) nationaljournal.com, 06/03/00 (subscription required) And Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser - or as some call him "Bush's Brain" - refused to sell some $250,000 worth of Enron stock until June of 2000, despite having met with Ken Lay about the administration's energy policy before his sale of the stock. What Karl Rove's case indicates is a White House that is closely tied to the fallen giant and which, for self-interested reasons, refuses to create an independent energy policy which places the national interest ahead of the interest of corporate cronies of the administration. See: news.bbc.co.uk deal-with-it.org

To: DavesM who wrote (18635)	5/24/2005 8:52:24 PM
From: geode00	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361354

Shame will never slow the corporate high-flyers who want to wring huge sums of money from America's electricity users. Surely, though, the federal government ought to yell, "Stop." Despite the continuing robbery of Western ratepayers, the push to privatize the nation's electrical service marches forward. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is leading the charge for further deregulation. But Republican and Democratic senators from the West last week began to demand answers about FERC's plans for a huge new step in its attempts to create a more market-based electrical system. FERC Chairman Pat Wood told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that the commission will take more time -- but at best only into next year -- to weigh concerns about its plans to restructure electric markets in regions across the country. Congress should order a stand-down by FERC. And Congress itself should show restraint on privatization and eliminate further electricity deregulation from the federal energy bill it is considering. At whatever pace, the energy commission remains intent on its plans for deregulation, including a proposal for what FERC calls "standard market design." That scheme was the object of senators' worries last Tuesday. The 630-page plan calls for each region of the country to set up new market mechanisms and oversight bodies that would be accountable to the commission rather than to the states. Many states view the proposal as a tremendous erosion of their ability to protect consumers from unjustifiably high electric prices. The commission's plan also carries a complexity that reminds some utility experts of the unwieldy rules California had in place when energy crisis struck the West with catastrophic rate increases last year. The biggest caution sign should come from Wood's assertions that the standard market design incorporates lessons learned from the energy crisis. How can lessons be well learned, when the California market collapse still isn't fully understood? As The Wall Street Journal reported last week, regulators still haven't figured out how much of the corporate profits during the crisis resulted from "outright manipulation." But a lengthy Journal review of documents showed, among other things, that Enron played an even bigger role than previously believed in driving up the prices. Even the current incomplete understanding of Enron's games emerged only after Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and other Energy Committee members put Wood through an uncomfortable grilling in January. That should be no source of comfort for those who would like to trust that FERC is on the right track. During last week's hearing, Western Republican senators were particularly forceful in warning Wood that the timing of his agency's push for uniform regional markets is terribly off. FERC and the Justice Department have started investigations into the activities of Enron and other energy-trading companies during the 2000-2001 crisis. But those investigations are only in progress. As chairman, Wood has shown some signs he can outgrow the unfortunate legacy of a commission appointment that came his way because former Enron CEO Ken Lay suggested his name to President Bush. But FERC and the administration cannot claim to have learned lessons from the Western energy crisis if they continue pushing deregulation at this point. Just months after Congress and the Bush administration united in their group hug of corporate reform, it would be unseemly -- or worse -- for them to move forward with the energy privatization agenda promoted by the poster child of corporate abuse, Enron.

To: DavesM who wrote (18635)	5/24/2005 9:02:46 PM
From: geode00	Respond to of 361354

Nettie Hoge Executive director of The Utility Reform Network (TURN) Wasn't the federal government supposed to be involved in this deregulation, in making sure [energy companies charge] just and reasonable rates? What happened here? When we sold our power producing plants to generators who had corporate headquarters in Texas or the South--out-of-state corporate headquarters--we lost control over them. In other words, the state could no longer tell them what to do. The state regulation was gone. At that point, the only oversight in regulation was at the federal level, and it was housed in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, [which] has a statutory mandate to assure that the rates charged customers are just and reasonable. What the FERC did is they said, "We're not going to look at the rates; we're going to assume that because the market is wonderful, magic, and efficient, that any rate produced by the market mechanism is per se just and reasonable." Soon after that, they issued their own decision, which said, "Whoa! Prices are out of control. They're not just and reasonable." But in the face of their own decision that prices were not just and reasonable, they stood back and refused to intervene. They could have fixed the California problem in a nanosecond. What they would have done would be to impose cost-based caps on a region-wide basis and they stepped back and said, "No." They left California twisting in the wind. ... So I understand that you're saying that the FERC--the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--has the power already, under the law, to bring this whole situation under control. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--the FERC--has not only the power to bring this system under control, it has the mandate in law to assure that the rates we pay are just and reasonable. And it has failed utterly in its obligation. Why aren't they doing it? There's a number of explanations for why the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is failing to step up to the plate. The first one is that they're apologists for a market mechanism that they set into play in 1988, and ever since that time, they've been going down the stairway of the market. Their mantra is, "The market will save us; all we have to do is suffer through the current environment." In reality, that's not their job. They're not to make distinctions between the benefits of market versus regulated enterprises. They're supposed to use the tools they have to assure rates are just and reasonable. ... You said the feds aren't acting; they are acting. They just passed $69 million in refunds. ... The federal government has really, really late in the game woken up and decided they'd better do something. What they've done is symbolic. Sixty-nine million dollars is chump change in terms of the $13 billion that was vacuumed out of this economy. ... The feds are asleep at the switch. They are looking the other way because they're apologists for some kind of market rhetoric and ideology that they committed themselves to and will follow blindly, regardless of the consequences to the California economy.... ====================== Ken Lay Chairman of Enron Corporation In California, they say we can't deal with this problem because the real market cop is in Washington--the FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission--and they're not helping us. Basically, what they're saying in California is, "We want the FERC to put price caps on wholesale electricity prices." That just camouflages the problem. It doesn't solve the problem. We have a supply/demand imbalance in California--too much demand, too little supply ... I prefer to let the market sift that out. When the governor put on price caps back in October, we, along with another company, cancelled the construction of a couple of big power plant peaking plants, which would have been available for this summer, because we couldn't justify making those big investments in peaking plants, which will just run a few days during the year. Price caps do not solve the problem, but price caps just require the politicians to decide who's going to be curtailed. pbs.org ============ Note that at this time Ken Lay, aka lying scumbag already knew what kind of company Enron was and what they were doing to California. It's pure fraud, intimidation and criminal activity helped along by idiots who do not have a working understanding of the basics of American capitalism.