Enron did not just "happen" at the end of 2001. Democratic politicians had their hands in all kinds of Enron business.

Point 1: Lay wanted control of energy emissions and carbon dioxide emissions under the Kyoto agreement to artificially create a market for CO2 "credits" to be purchased to burn coal. Lay had secretly cultivated Clinton administration officials -- including Tim Wirth, under secretary of state for Global Affairs. Ratifying and implementing Kyoto would greatly increase the cost of generating electricity from coal. To burn coal, it would be necessary to purchase credits for the emission of CO2. That would create a market for Enron, buying and selling emission credits. Internal memos show that Enron envisioned a profit here as early as 1996.

On Dec. 5, 1995, Lay wrote Clinton Environmental Protection Administrator Carol Browner pressing for the trading of emission standards.

Point 2: Enron has 3,000 +/- partnerships and subsidiaries, nearly 900 of which are offshore. Some of them are Condor, Raptor, JEDI and Chewco. 95% of these partnerships and subsidiaries were set up during the Clinton administration

Point 3: Using these subsidiaries and tax havens, Enron paid no (as in ZERO!) corporate income taxes for four of the past five years during the Clinton administration. It was also eligible for $382 million in tax refunds!
Where was the Clinton IRS and the Treasury Department then?

Point 4: Sen. Joseph Lieberman's former top aide, working as an Enron lobbyist, met three times with the senator's staff and tried to arrange a meeting between Enron's chairman and Lieberman - now leading an investigation of the oil giant. Lobbyist Michael Lewan served three years as Lieberman's chief of staff and remains a political adviser.

Lieberman, the unsuccessful vice presidential candidate in 2000, was one of the first lawmakers to announce an investigation of Enron after its December bankruptcy. The Connecticut Democrat also has cautioned colleagues not to jump to conclusions about Enron's political connections with the Bush administration or Congress before having all the facts (finally, some fairness!).

Just a week before filing for bankruptcy protection, Enron donated $100,000 to the Senate Democrats' fund-raising committee.

Enron and its affiliates also spent about $1 million in the first half of 2001 on a star-studded lobbying team in Washington. That team included former Clinton White House counsel Jack Quinn, ex-Democratic Louisiana Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, and former Al Gore adviser Greg Simon.

Lewan, who worked as Lieberman's chief of staff from 1989 to 1992, said he tried to build relationships for the company with Democratic members of Congress who focused on energy issues, but not his former boss. Lewan said he worked as an Enron lobbyist from June through November 2001, earning some $40,000.

Point 5: Many Democrats were also financial recipients of Enron's political contributions, including Bill Clinton (who golfed with Lay), as well as former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, Tom Daschle, Rep. John Dingell, Florida Sens. Bob Graham and Bill Nelson and Al Gore.

Point 6: According to the Weekly Standard (Brooks): "On July 5, 1995 Enron Corporation donated $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee. Six days later, Enron executives were on a trade mission with Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor to Bosnia and Croatia. With Kantor’s support, Enron signed a $100 million contract to build a 150-megawatt power plant." Needless to say, the late Ron Brown, Kantor’s predecessor, was cozy with Enron as well, as Brooks’ article points out.

Point 7: Robert Rubin, Clinton's former secretary of the treasury and now chairman of Citigroup, called a top Treasury official in 1991, inquiring about Enron's situation. Citigroup was holding $750 million in Enron debt.

Point 8: Democratic Senate Energy Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman personally met with Enron Corp. Chairman Ken Lay in June 2001 to discuss energy policy. The June 21 meeting was a few weeks after Bingaman, a top Senate recipient of Enron's political contributions and a former Enron stockholder, had become chairman of the energy committee following the Democrats' taking control of the Senate. The two men discussed proposals to restructure energy markets that were going to be coming before Bingaman's committee, but he said nothing Enron has done has influenced his work in the Senate (right!!!).

By the time Lay and Bingaman met, Enron's stock had already begun its precipitous slump that ended in the largest bankruptcy filing in history on Dec. 2 and has sparked numerous investigations by congressional committees and a Justice Department probe. Bingaman's Energy Committee is planning a hearing at the end of the month to investigate whether additional oversight and regulation of the electrical markets is needed. A week before the June meeting Bingaman's financial manager sold 200 shares of Enron stock from one of the senator's investment funds. The stock had been bought in October 2000 for $16,525 and sold June 15 for $9,596.

Point 9: Enron Corp. donated $420,000 to Democrats over a three-year period while heavily lobbying the Clinton administration to expedite passage of a 1997 global warming treaty that would have dramatically increased the firm's sales of natural gas. Federal and confidential corporate records show that after donating thousands of dollars in soft money and PAC donations beginning in 1995, Enron received easy access to President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. In one meeting, Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay met Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore in the Oval Office, during which the Enron boss was asked for input on a pending international energy conference in Kyoto, Japan.
During their term in office, Clinton administration officials, mainly from the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, often made themselves available for Enron executives to discuss the firm's needs, according to records, even arranging for meetings with key congressional staffers. Executives for the Houston-based energy giant, which filed for bankruptcy Dec. 2, sought help from the Clinton administration in an effort to give the firm the ability to buy and sell trading credits to emit carbon dioxide as part of a strategy to reduce greenhouse gases. The new system would have encouraged new investments in gas-fired plants and pipelines and curtailed the use of coal-fired power plants, which emit more carbon dioxide. Natural gas, electricity and their delivery systems constitute Enron's major businesses.

During the July 1997 White House meeting, Mr. Lay personally lobbied Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore to support a "market-based" approach to what he described as the problem of global warming, an Enron economic strategy that a December 1997 private internal memo said would be "good for Enron stock!!" The memo, written by Enron executive John Palmisano, said the Kyoto treaty — later signed by Mr. Clinton and leaders of 166 other countries, but never ratified by the Senate — "would do more to promote Enron's business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States." In an August 1997 memo by Mr. Lay to all Enron employees, the chairman said Mr. Clinton and Mr. Gore had "solicited" his view on how to address the issue of global warning "in advance of a climate treaty to be negotiated at an international conference." That memo said Mr. Clinton agreed a market-based solution, such as emissions trading, was the answer to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The Kyoto treaty calls for industrial nations to reduce emissions by 2012 to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels. Mr. Clinton never presented the treaty to the Senate for ratification because of congressional opposition.
On Aug. 15, 1997, the Senate voted 95-0 for a resolution setting parameters for climate negotiations, saying U.S. diplomats should not negotiate a climate treaty in which poor countries have fewer commitments than the United States and other developed countries. The Senate vote guaranteed that the treaty would not be ratified.
Despite the Senate decision, Enron continued to push the Clinton administration well into 1998 for what the company called a "restructuring" of legislation that would have been a "first step to solving the problems of global climate change." The firm, according to the records, sought laws that would have favored Enron's natural gas inventory and reduced competition from coal.
During a Feb. 20, 1998, meeting with Energy Secretary Federico Pena, Mr. Lay encouraged the Clinton administration to seek electricity legislation favored by Enron, outlining for the secretary what the company believed were the "important" pending legislative concerns.
"Today's meeting between Ken Lay and Energy Secretary Federico Pena to discuss electricity legislation went very well," said the memo written by Jeff Keller, the firm's Washington governmental affairs chief.
"Secretary Pena indicated that the White House proposed bill is 'on the president's desk,' and that Clinton could be convinced to release the White House proposal in the next few days," Mr. Keller said. "He suggested that President Clinton might be motivated by some key contacts from important constituents."
Mr. Lay took that advice and sent a letter to Mr. Clinton that day, asking him to "move this matter forward."

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I could go on all day...

Follow Ups:

• Re: The GOP has a 72% stake in Enron's influece peddling, Democrats only 28% Egalitarian 11:11:55 1/23/2002 (1)
  • Democrats took 28% of Enron's Political Contributions stix 13:30:54 1/23/2002 (0)
• No party remains unscathed Maestro 12:31:14 1/22/2002 (1)
  • Re: No party remains unscathed stix 14:05:37 1/22/2002 (0)