The Enron Story
Why the Resident-Select Won't Lift a Finger for California -- Unless It's the Middle One
by Tamara Baker

Monday, Jan. 29, 2001 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- You may be wondering about the energy crunch in California, and how it came to be.

That's not surprising, since the broadcast media seems to be determined NOT to present the whole story.

The whole reason that Californians are hurting is because in 1996, then-Republican Governor Pete Wilson signed off on a bill designed in part by the utilities themselves to deregulate California's power utilities. This enabled companies like the Texas-based Enron to literally make billions off of selling energy to California's utilities.

Enron just happens to be former Texas Governor George W. Bush's oldest and most generous political patron, having given him nearly a million dollars over the years, over $500,000 of it just for his Presidential campaign.

But don't take my word for it. Check out what the Boston Globe has to say on the subject:

WASHINGTON - One of the biggest beneficiaries of the California power crisis is a Texas energy conglomerate that, more than any other company, has helped bankroll President Bush's political career.

Enron Corp. of Houston is among several brokers and producers of electricity that have reaped giant profits from California's power shortages and higher natural gas prices nationwide.

The new president's rejection of price controls to cap soaring electricity costs in the Golden State reflects the views of Enron, the largest wholesaler of electricity and the largest owner of natural gas pipelines in North America.

The company and its employees have given more than anyone else to Bush's two campaigns for governor, his unsuccessful House campaign in 1978, and last year's race for the White House, according to the watchdog Center for Public Integrity.

So Californians, who summarily rejected then-Governor Bush at the polls in November, nevertheless are being forced by the Resident-Select to subsidize his biggest lifetime campaign contributor.

What was this again about 'honor' and 'dignity' and 'ethics'?

Speaking of energy-related companies, we find that Bush's friends (to the tune of nearly $300,000, last I checked), Sam and Charles Wyly are heavily invested in Green Mountain, a company whose self-described environmentally-friendly energy producer image has been tarnished severely over the years. What's more, Green Mountain was recently bought into, to the tune of nearly 20 percent, by BP Amoco, another big GOP contributor.

Why is this of interest to you, dear reader?

Because BP Amoco is #4 on my continuing list of GWB's Golden Lawbreakers: Those persons or companies who, under the executive orders issued by Bill Clinton (and immediately trashed by Shrub), would not be allowed Federal contracts because of their breaking environmental, labor or anti-discrimination laws. According to the fine folks at http://www.boycottgreenmountain.com:

BP Amoco is one of the top 10 toxic polluters in the U.S. They are the leading force behind attempts to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil exploration. BP Amoco is responsible for 104 oil spills in America’s Arctic between January 1997 and March 1998. That's one spill every four days.

On Sept. 23, 1999, BP Amoco plead guilty to a federal felony conviction connected to illegal dumping of hazardous waste at their Endicott Oil Field near Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. As part of a plea agreement BP Amoco agreed to pay a $22 million in criminal and civil penalties.

Whew.

Whenever I hear the Bush Baby and his minders talk of 'honor and dignity', I keep thinking of how Vizzini kept saying 'inconceivable!' in the movie version of The Princess Bride. I just wish that, whenever one of the illegal junta occupying the White House mentioned things like 'ethics', 'honor' and 'dignity', some person or persons would play the role of Fezzik and say to the junta members: "I think you're using those words improperly."