Enron, Bush, and the Calif. Energy Crisis

[Apos]

—* But, as far as I know, there is NO evidence to suggest that the White House assisted Enron in their alleged criminal activity. —

If they, after being lobbied by industry executives to not do anything about te California crisis, listened and did nothing, then that definately is an assist (though I don’t think a criminal one). If the federal gov intervened, companies like Enron stood to lose millions in potential profits and lost revenue. So of course they would care about it not happening, and their elected representatives would be loathe to hurt them.

I should also mention that the allegations go FAR beyond simply taking advantage of botched deregulation. What people are really pissed off about is the possibility that the entire crisis was manufactured by power producers. Just before the crisis, a suspicious number of power generators took their plants offline, or down for repairs, all roughly in the same period. And once price caps were finally imposed, all these resources mysteriously came back online again. Not proof, but very suspicious, and if true, far more damning for an administration which refused to do anything about it.

[kesagiri]

As somebody who was in there on the ground watching the CA energy crisis occur, looking at the Bush Administration is kind of silly. I am not surprised by Davis’ reaction. It will give him something else to push off attention to his own ineptitude during the crisis.

If they, after being lobbied by industry executives to not do anything about te California crisis, listened and did nothing, then that definately is an assist (though I don’t think a criminal one). If the federal gov intervened, companies like Enron stood to lose millions in potential profits and lost revenue. So of course they would care about it not happening, and their elected representatives would be loathe to hurt them.

The only problem with this is that the Feds did intervene through FERC. FERC made several rulings that restored some sanity to the market. Whenever an independent energy generator found a loophole they closed it. Sure it was a day late and a dollar (more like $13 billion) short, but it did act.

Most of the inaction actually came from the Clintion Admin. and the Clinton FERC. Go figure. Althought Lay was a shrewd guy at the politics game and made friends on both sides of the aisle.

I should also mention that the allegations go FAR beyond simply taking advantage of botched deregulation.

But that is exactly what was done. Once the generators figured out how to game the market they did. Wow, big shock.

What people are really pissed off about is the possibility that the entire crisis was manufactured by power producers. Just before the crisis, a suspicious number of power generators took their plants offline, or down for repairs, all roughly in the same period.

And to be fair, that was right after a hot summer with a large number of ‘No-Touch’ days.

As to FERC dragging its feet, its not clear to me what their role should be – keep in mind that the system in place was essentially a creation of the California legislature, i.e., operating under California law. While FERC does have an overarching authority to ensure that wholesale rates are “just and reasonable”, the people crying for FERC intervention are those who were silently taking advantage of the initially lower rates produced by the operation of the markets, but are now looking for extra-market intervention once the players figured out how to legally exploit the market.

Oh you mean those few months when prices were low. Okay.

Lets not mention the one ancillary market where the price was $9,999.99 per mWh. The problem was that the prices were very, very high and in low usage months. $250 is, as has been noted, quite suspicious. The ISO’s website has some papers on the market on this. They aren’t ISO papers, but by a group that is “attached” to the ISO IIRC.

All along it was see no evil from the Bush administration over California’s energy gouging. Price caps? Who needs Price Caps? was the refrain from the Cheney Administration. Let us do the work, said the Kenneth E. Lay memorial FERC commission.

Cut the crap. That was the same damn thing from Clinton and his boyos. This problem started under Clinton’s watch and it was during the Bush Admin. that price caps were imposed.

Yeah right, the administration did nothing. They were on the take to do nothing – and weren’t unhappy to screw California besides. The administration could hardly stink further, what with the energy policy being ghost written by the energy corporations, the stonewalling of Cali’s concerns, and the rank stench of the ranking Army Secretary. If this doesn’t merit an investigation, nothing does.

This is particularly funny given you seem completely unaware of the facts. Clinton did nothing and Bush did nothing at first, but then the FERC intervened.

[quote[I guess the scenerio is that Enron directed Cheney to discourage FERC from doing their job and curbing price gouging in the California electricity markets. Evil. [/quote]

And Clinton and Gore’s role was what? Pure and good?

[Rocza]

And to be fair, that was right after a hot summer with a large number of ‘No-Touch’ days.

Not all of them. There were several blackouts last winter/spring in California during days which were cool. The majority of those were due to power stations, which were *contracted * to be online, not being online. I don’t believe that anything was every proved in cases of suspicious shutdowns but I do know that three workers for Duke Energy said that at that plant, they were ordered to throw away working parts and report the plant “unavailable”. This was over a year ago and the only cite I can find is here.

The blackouts (or threat of blackouts) also intensified as power companies became more aggressive about insisting on long term contracts. This happened in spring of 2001 not summer.

This states that the increase in power usage for that summer was well within normal growth and should have been planned for.

Don’t get me wrong-California’s deregulation was fatally flawed but that doesn’t absolve companies who acted illegally. Some (much?) of the market manipulation was legal and took advantage of loopholes but not all of it was legal.

[rjung]

*Originally posted by Rocza *
Don’t get me wrong-California’s deregulation was fatally flawed but that doesn’t absolve companies who acted illegally. Some (much?) of the market manipulation was legal and took advantage of loopholes but not all of it was legal.

Which makes me wonder why Pete Wilson and the Republicans in the California state legislature haven’t been called to the carpet for their spearheading of this f’ed up energy deregulation mess in the first place.