A note on the Amazon ads: I've chosen to display current events titles in the Amazon box. Unfortunately, Amazon appears to promote a disproportionate number of angry-left books. I have no power over it at this time. Rest assured, I'm still a conservative.
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Friday, January 18, 2002
I know it may be hard to believe, but Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman is at it again. Waxman is leading the charge trying to find some way to tie the Enron bankruptcy to the Bush Administration. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be working thus far, mainly because there's no evidence to support claims of preferential treatment.
But that's not stopping Waxman. Waxman commissioned a "report" detailing benefits which Enron gained from Bush's proposed energy policy. Ignore for a moment that Bush's energy plan has not been approved by either house of Congress. Also ignore that all of these "benefits" did little to prevent Enron from filing for bankruptcy.
If you can ignore all of that, then the report tries say that it wasn't really important anyway.
Even in areas where Enron did not get every policy it advocated, the White House energy plan is helpful to the company. In the area of global warming, for example, the plan does not support the mandatory controls on carbon dioxide emissions sought by Enron. But the plan does direct federal agencies to identify “market mechanisms” to address global warming, which would help develop the type of market in carbon credits sought by Enron.
Enron didn't get what it wanted, but it still got something that benefited it. Waxman is focusing on Enron because it went bankrupt. But this report is next to meaningless. Waxman has found 17 policies that benefited Enron. Well, let's look at all the other energy companies out there. Would they too have benefited from some of the proposals? Yes. Would the American people have benefited from the new policies? Hopefully so, but you can never tell with politicians, Republican or Democrat.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called the report a waste of taxpayer money. Well, that's what Washington is there for. I would've hoped, with all of the money spent on the report, you'd have thought they could write a better conclusion.
The White House energy plan is intended to be “a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, and as necessary and appropriate, State and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future.” In large part, however, the plan contains policies recommended by Enron. There are at least 17 separate policies in the White House energy plan track policies that were supported by and would benefit Enron. These policies include a large number of proposals to deregulate the electric utility industry, as well as proposals that promote trading in energy derivatives and open federal lands to natural gas drilling. The White House energy plan even contains proposals that would assist Enron operations in foreign countries such as India.
The last sentence is hilarious, when you realize that it was the Clinton Administration that helped Enron with building a power plant in India. Shortly after the plant was completed, the Democratic Party got a $100,000 donation from Enron. If Waxman's looking for a quid pro quo maybe he ought to be investigating the Clinton Administration, which he spent so much time defending.
12:03 AM
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