Thursday, July 08, 2004

Ken Lay's best pal, and what it means for you

Here’s a shot of Bush walking out of a briefing with the media yesterday, refusing to answer questions after he was asked about Enron and the reported indictment of former CEO Kenneth Lay, who was a close adviser and the largest single fund-raiser for Bush and his father, earning him the presidential nickname of ‘Kenny Boy.’

Does it seem all too distant? How does this affect you and me?
Here’s a breakdown of what it cost us here in Oregon, after Enron bought out PGE, our local electric utility over the protests of many:

$665 million for “federal and state income taxes” that in fact neither PGE nor Enron actually paid to any government.
$366 million through illegal market manipulation during the “energy crisis” of 2000-01 (confirmed by Oregon AG)
$400 million in profits for its sole shareholder, Enron.
plus:
$400 million a year in rate hikes (42%!!) in effect for the last 3 years
Over $100 million lost by PGE employees in their 401k retirement plans
$82 million lost by PERS when Enron stock became worthless
$90 million in promised refunds to ratepayers, which were never made.
(figures from Utility Reform Project)

This has cost Oregon alone almost $3 billion, far more than it would have cost to balance state budgets, fund schools and health care and still lower taxes at the same time. Add this to the similar damage done in neighboring states. Washington has billions in public utility contracts to Enron, like Snohomish PUD’s $1.2 billion contract, signed under duress during the worst of the energy crunch that was engineered by Enron. And at least $10 billion in California. As much as $40 billion total across the states in the West and the South, where Enron had most of their power contracts.

All this during a recession, when we could least afford to pay for this, when Oregon and Washington had the highest unemployment in the country. But Lay and Enron just didn’t care. Like his best pal George W. Bush, who promised to run the U.S. government like a corporation.

Now we know which corporation he had in mind - Enron.

- Bob Woods