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Enron Mail |
---------------------- Forwarded by Terence H Thorn/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT on
11/22/99 05:24 AM --------------------------- Terence H Thorn 11/22/99 05:22 AM To: "Michael J. Farrar" <MFARRAR@mail.arco.com<, Edith Terry/ENRON_DEVELOPMENT@ENRON_DEVELOPMENT cc: "Ken Thompson" <KTHOMPS1@mail.arco.com<, sburns@pecc.org Subject: Re: EWG meeting The Energy Business network survived the EWG meeting in Wellington. I'll give you a quick recap and my impressions and we can decide if I should send a note out to everyone next week or wait until we meet on the 15th for my report. The official report should be on the internet Monday. A meeting of the EBN has been scheduled in Melbourne on March 18-19 to coincide with the Davos Meeting. They are also talking about an EWG meeting in March also. I will be late for the meeting on the 15th. I have a black tie dinner on Tuesday night and will take the first plane to Houston from New York Wednesday AM. Sorry but I can't get out of the dinner, it's been planned for a long time and I have guests. 20 countries were present. If you look back on the agenda for the 18th meeting of the EWG business network on November 18-19 in Wellington, four agenda items were of particular interest to the Energy Business Network: 1) the report on the 2nd meeting of the EBN meeting: we were forewarned that the activities of the EBN would be under attack by the Japanese, Chinese and Mexicans. 2) the discussion and report on the EWG implementation Committee's Visit Team to Thailand, 8-10 November 1999. 3) the DOE recommendation on a Proposed Plan of Work on Energy Services- again very controversial. 4) the proposed Energy Ministerial in the US in the Spring. Mexico, China and Japan were not happy with the proactive push of the EBN. I assume it was Mexico that made sure we were excluded from the discussions on the Thai visit and energy services, two EBN initiatives Barry and I would only be allowed in the room for the EBN report, something I protested prior to the meeting. With the help of Tim Mackey, we somewhat circumvented the restriction by his going around the room one by one after Barry's report asking for reaction to what was said. This forced a discussion with us in the room. Both Barry and I responded to the issues raised. The dissenters maintained that the EBN was working too fast and that we were taking the initiative away from the EWG and becoming too independent. Japan supports the concept of the EBN but made it clear that it was the EWG that sets initiatives. The EBN "summary of decisions" was a particular affront. We had strong support from Australia, Canada, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines (they are concerned that the EBN not duplicate EWG initiatives) Singapore, Thailand, and the US. China surprised us by complaining that the EWG and EBN meetings were now separate, not back to back. Barry explained this was more an accident that anything else. It took some effort, but I think we made our case. I emphasized strongly that the EBN consisted of some of the best and brightest in the energy industry and that we would not be shy about offering our ideas. We operate with a great sense of urgency seeing that APEC will eventually $30 trillion of investment to meet their energy needs. Each economy could accept of reject these ideas but I doubted they wanted to be a rubber stamp for the EWG. As for energy services, as I understood it, the DOE program was designed to get the EWG up to speed on what energy services are, an educational effort that compliments what is going on at the WTO. Services represented stage three in energy development that would increase the efficiency of the infrastructure and offer new products and services to users of energy. The key discussion would occur on Friday in our absence. There were two official reports on the Thai meeting, one by the secretariat which was more of a recap of the process and agenda with no evaluation of the success and one by the Thai's, the last paragraph of which was very favorable. Ironically, the controversy concerned the process by which we participants were chosen. No one has been able to explain to me why the EWG would care about this issue and I honestly believe that the USG was a major factor in stirring this up and when you cut through the bull, it's about exerting control over the EWG. Again, everyone was in support of the consultative process and the value it brings in opening dialogues on difficult issues. I noted that the Thai's should get particular credit for being so open and candid in the discussions. In our absence there was a long discussion on the Energy principles endorsed by the EBN which were turned back into an Energy Charter. They agreed that an Energy Charter statement would be drafted by the secretariat and circulated to member economies. The implementation committee discussion on Friday was supportive but as I noted but focused on the process, not as I emphasized it should be- on the results which were a success. They was strong support led by DOE/USG to eliminate the steering and implementation committees. I did not see the final language and was presented with two conflicting versions: one that letters requesting a visit would go to the secretariat who would forward them to the EWG and EBN for suggestions on who should participate, the Secretariat deciding, and one where the Secretariat sends the request to the EWG and they consult with their EBN representatives and decide. I made it clear that the latter process was unacceptable and the EBN would strongly oppose it. This process would take months and the EWG was in no position to decide who could best provide the people to address an economies specific request. I told this to the USG delegation and they assured me the former would be the model. We'll see. Energy services was also a long discussion and the Japanese focused on severing this initiative from anything to do with the WTO. In my private discussions with the Japanese, they expressed the concern that this could be considered an endorsement of the liberalization of energy services and used against them in the WTO negotiations. Again, I didn't see the final outcome, but I understand that at the next EWG meeting, will present a trimmed own version of the work plan minus any reference to the WTO. It was agreed that there should be a seminar on the topic but the EWG would only consider a seminar at the next meeting. This is way to slow and Barry and David think we need to get a white paper before the EWG in the next few months and push for a seminar at the next EWG meeting. This is awkward for me since the US EBN has no position, but the entire EBN supports this effort as does the USG and we need to work with everyone to make the effort a success. With great skepticism that the US can organize a Ministerial in five months (Edmonton took ten months), the EWG agreed to a Ministerial May 8-12. At the EWG meeting on Thursday, I pushed the idea that the day before the official meeting should be dedicated to a series of direct interactions with the business community much like the Latin meeting in New Orleans. The USG said they will include this idea in their proposal at the January steering meeting. The Ministerial will be on the west coast. I am glad that I was there even though many of the discussions were painful. We beat down and reconfirmed strong support for the EBN, although it may be watered down, energy services is still on the table and can still be a valuable educating process while meeting the concerns of some of the US EBN members, the consultative process is alive and well -- we'll see if it's been wounded -- and we may have a great opportunity in May for direct interaction with the energy ministers. Wish you had been there. It rained for four days.
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