> Great article, except... the FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory
> Commission) might have been couched by DoE Secretary Spencer Abraham
> (probably with the help of VP Cheney and Enron CEO Kenneth Lay) to
> enforce the contracts in spring 2001, knowing full well they would
> bankrupt the California State budget. The purpose was no doubt two
> fold. First, it was a last ditch effort to save Enron, Dynergy, et
> al. which de-constructed barely three months later during the summer
> 2001, and second, it served the political purpose of giving California
> Republicans political leverage against Gray Davis in an election
> year.
Yes. I totally agree. Enron would have begun hemorrhaging sooner if their share price and thus the partnerships their stock was backing sunk due to trading losses, sooner. So, they needed to keep price caps away as long as possible to manipulate the market to survive.
The FERC / White House combination, with Cheney at the helm of the energy policy committee was collusive in that regard, keeping Enron and others alive at the expense of California. I have a quote in the book from Cheney to the effect of '"I never saw a regulation I liked.'" from Spring 2001.
And, it was certainly no coincidence that the moment regional price caps were finally put in place, Enron collapsed under unsustainable trading losses, which then made their way around the rest of the merchant sector.
Equally, I agree that what's going on with Davis now, is part of that
strategy to eject a Dem. and with him, the memory of California's problems as pinned
on him, that began a couple years ago.
>
> You probably couldn't prove the above without access to the `secret'
> meetings between Cheney, Abraham, and Texas energy tycoons during
> spring 2001, which were withheld from the Congressional investigating
> committees under the pretext of `executive privilege'---which means
> `collusion and conspiracy to defraud' in Washington-speak. But it
> would have been nice to mention.
>
Yeah. 'executive privilege', was a very convenient excuse to keep the manipulation going and the secrets secret. Didn't help that the GAO caved a couple months ago and decided to keep Cheney's energy policy meetings out of the public domain. And though the case was revived recently for disclosure of Cheney's & Co.s documents, it's still highly likely, that the Bush administration will appeal it, particularly in the run up to the election.
> You could have also smeared the FERC members with their own
> biographies. They might not have actually needed Cheney, Abraham and
> Lay for couches, except on the details and political ramifications.
Absolutely.
> For example, there is FERC chairman aka Corporate Slimebag Pat
> (Patsey) Wood who comes from guess where? Well, Texas, of
> course. According to his bio, he was in charge of the state's
> telecommunications and electric power industries.
Yeah. And he was put into Texas Public Utility Commission power by then Governor GW, and Ken Lay. Talk about cozy and historical repetition.
And > there is Vampira Nora Mead Browell, yet another privitizing for fun
> and profit scum, `a leader in the administration of Pennsylvania's
> Electric Choice Consumer Education Program.'
Love the term 'vampira'. Another thing about FERC that amazes me, is that of the five commissioner spots, only three have been filled, since the CA crisis began, or throughout Bush's administration. So, the fact that there's a Bush implanted 2-1 vote on anything of meaning makes it clear that nothing will change in favor of the population at the expense of the corporation.
>
> What is really needed is a big long detailed book that lays out what
> amounts to a multi-national US corporate-government effort to turn the
> entire construction of `public utilities' ,`public interest', `public
> commons' inside out...
> Tell me your forthcoming book `Money for Nothing' covers at least some
> of this.
>
I try. Money for Nothing, the Corporate Mugging of America, delves into how
deliberate and collusive the government / corporate / Wall Street alliances and
strategies across the energy, telecoms and banking industries were and are,
using details of some of the recent scandals in those sectors as illustrative
cases.
Also, it takes issue with the regulatory bodies (FERC, FCC, SEC) supposedly
designed to 'protect the public interest', but who were in fact, MIA. This,
against the backdrop of over inflated stock, debt, capacity, and fraud.
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