Jeff Girth of NYT

As I mentioned earlier to Mark, Jeff Girth of the NYT again today contacted
Lee Sachs about Enron. You recall Lee was Asst Secretary of Treasury for
Financial Markets during the Clinton Administration. From his conversation,
Lee reports the following items were raised by Girth: a) the state of energy
trading products and investment climate; b) Enron's role in this market; c)
whether and how financial energy products drive pricing and supply of
physical energy products (Lee told him emphatically no); and, c) whether
government regulators understand these issues. Lee said this is clearly an
Enron specific story. Lee thinks Girth came away from the conversation with
more of a right perspective (namely that these are important markets and that
we play a vital role). Lee said that Girth was less focussed on passage of
the CEA and the politics than Girth had been in an earlier conversation;
almost all of today's conversation was forward looking. Girth told Lee that
he had not told Lee "all" that is behind this story, but did say that there
is an interesting twist (Lee thinks Girth perhaps something specific either
on a document front or source). Lee gave Girth a list of experts to talk to
who are unbiased but clearly right thinking on the subject. Lee suggested
that Girth to: Pat Parkinson at the Fed (the godfather of the "hands off"
regulatory perspective for the OTC market), Bill Rainer, and Ed Rosen (a
prominent attorney in NY). Lee expects Girth to keep calling him.