Connect the Enron Dots to Bush

Robert Scheer:
December 11, 2001

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/
la-000098235dec11.column?coll=la%2Dutil%2Dop%2Ded

   
Enron is Whitewater in spades. This isn't just some
rinky-dink land investment like the one dredged up by
right-wing enemies to haunt the Clinton White House-- but
rather it has the makings of the greatest presidential
scandal since the Teapot Dome.

The Bush administration has a long and intimate relationship
with Enron, whose much-discredited chairman, Kenneth L. Lay,
was a primary financial backer of George W. Bush's rise to
the presidency.

It was Enron that provided the model for the
administration's trickle-down attempt to revive an economy
that's been in steep decline during Bush's tenure. That
model gives the fat-cat corporate hotshots everything they
want in return for bankrolling political campaigns. Not to
worry about the rest of us because, hey, what's good for
Enron is good for America. That it hasn't been is now
painfully clear.

What did Enron get in return for its contributions? It got
its way on deregulation, for one thing. Remember when the
administration refused to assist California and other states
during the energy crisis, and consumers paid the steep
price?

So greedy was Enron that it locked its own workers into a
pension plan based on inflated company stock values and
suspect hidden partnerships, while the top leadership led by
Lay made out like bandits.

Bush should be called as a witness in the congressional
hearings scheduled to unravel this mess. One thing that
should come up in the hearings is then-Gov. Bush's October
1997 telephone call on behalf of Lay to then- Pennsylvania
Gov. Tom Ridge to help Enron crack into the tightly
regulated Pennsylvania electricity market.

"I called George W. to kind of tell him what was going on,"
Lay told the New York Times about the 1997 phone call, "and
I said that it would be very helpful to Enron, which is
obviously a large company in the state of Texas, if he could
just call the governor [of Pennsylvania] and tell him
[Enron] is a serious company, this is a professional
company, a good company."

Since we now know Enron lacked those virtues, it's clear
Bush was used to sell a bill of goods to the unsuspecting
Pennsylvania folks.

That Lay was instrumental in Bush's rise to the presidency
is indisputable. Since 1993, Lay and top Enron executives
donated nearly $2 million to Bush. Lay also personally
donated $326,000 in soft money to the Republican Party in
the three years prior to Bush's presidential bid, and he was
one of the Republican "pioneers" who raised $100,000 in
smaller contributions for Bush. Lay's wife donated $100,000
for inauguration festivities.

As governor, Bush did what Enron wanted, cutting taxes and
deregulating utilities. The deregulation ideology, which
George W. long had adopted as gospel, allowed dubious
bookkeeping and other acts of chicanery that shocked Wall
Street and drove a $60-billion company, seventh on the
Fortune 500 list, into bankruptcy.

This emerging scandal makes Whitewater seem puny in
comparison; clearly there ought to be at least as aggressive
a congressional inquiry into the connection between the Bush
administration and the Enron debacle.  Facts must be
revealed, beginning with the content of Lay's private
meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney to create the
administration's energy policy.

What was Lay's role in the sudden replacement of Curtis
Hebert Jr. as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman?
As the New York Times reported, Hebert "had barely settled
into his new job this year when he had an unsettling
telephone conversation with Kenneth L.  Lay, [in which Lay]
prodded him to back ... a faster pace in opening up access
to the electricity transmission grid to companies like
Enron." Lay admits making the call but in an unctuous
defense of his influence peddling said, "The final decision
on [Hebert's job] was going to be the president's, certainly
not ours." Soon after, Hebert was replaced by Texan Pat
Wood, who was favored by Lay.

Other questions: Was there any conflict of interest in the
roles played by key Bush aides? Political advisor Karl Rove
owned as much as $250,000 in Enron stock. And economic
advisor Larry Lindsay and Trade Representative Robert
B. Zoellick went straight from Enron's payroll to their
federal jobs.

There are other Enron alum in the administration, including
Army Secretary Thomas White Jr., who, as an Enron executive,
held stock and options totaling $50 million to $100 million.

We have a right to know whether the Enron alums in the
administration were tipped off in time to bail out with
profit the way Lay and the other Enron top execs did, while
their workers and stockholders--and eventually
U.S. taxpayers--are being left holding the suddenly empty
bag.