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Enron Mail |
More indications that the power angle may be fruitful
----- Forwarded by Steven J Kean/NA/Enron on 09/26/2000 05:06 PM ----- Cynthia Sandherr 09/26/2000 03:09 PM To: Joe Hillings/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Tom Briggs/NA/Enron@Enron, Chris Long/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Allison Navin/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Lora Sullivan/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Amy Fabian/Corp/Enron@ENRON cc: Richard Shapiro/HOU/EES@EES, Steven J Kean/NA/Enron@Enron, Jeffrey Keeler/Corp/Enron@ENRON, Clayton Seigle/HOU/ECT@ECT Subject: novak column Gore favors `Big Power' September 25, 2000 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST Al Gore's $75 billion energy plan contains a $68 billion federal subsidy to help electric power companies make their plants environmentally friendly. Therein lies the dark side of the vice president's brand of populism. The power subsidy proposal was drafted by a Washington energy consultant who is one of Gore's closest advisers on the environment. One of the major beneficiaries of the plan would be a power company notorious for polluting the atmosphere. To close the circle, the company has used the Gore adviser as a paid consultant. In polishing up his energy program, Gore played a variation on his Los Angeles acceptance speech's populistic attack on certain categories of business that have broken no law. This time, the target was the energy industry ("Big Oil"), assailed for benefitting from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' manipulation of oil prices. But Gore is no across-the-board enemy of corporate America. He always takes care of friends. While positioning himself as the foe of Big Oil, he emerges as the friend of Big Power. In that category is American Electric Power, based in Columbus, Ohio, and one of the Midwest's biggest supplier of coal-generated power. AEP, sued by the Environmental Protection Agency last year for alleged violation of the Clear Air Act, is widely viewed as a pariah by the environmentalist movement. It is accused of running one of the dirtiest operations to generate power. AEP frequently has paid for advice from environmental advocate Kathleen A. McGinty, who has an unusual resume indeed. As senior legislative assistant for energy and environmental policy to then-Sen. Albert Gore Jr. of Tennessee, she quickly gained a reputation on Capitol Hill as a passionate advocate for global climate control. Gore picked her for Clinton administration posts, enabling her to affect national policy in a major way. In 1993, she was named to head the new White House Office on Environmental Policy. In 1996, she was promoted to head the Council on Environmental Quality and became a leader in trying to sell to America the massively unpopular 1997 Gore-promoted Kyoto Treaty (never considered by the Senate) to slash energy consumption. Last year, McGinty emerged as a consultant with the law and lobbying firm of Troutman Sanders. There, she has been engaged in an interesting balancing act. On the one hand, she advised AEP and the Atlanta-based Southern Co., another power giant. On the other, she moonlighted for Gore in drafting the June 27 energy plan. Since July, she has been working full time for the Democratic National Committee. Gore's plan promises to "clean up the nation's aging power plants by using market-based enforcement and comprehensive standards to reduce pollution and increase efficiency." It offers "a menu of financial mechanisms" to "those power plants and industries that come forward with projects that promise to dramatically reduce climate and health-threatening pollution." That means a big subsidy for electric power companies to help them clean up their plants. According to congressional energy sources, AEP would receive millions of dollars to get right environmentally. Gore always has shown ability to reward individual corporate friends while castigating big business as predators. I previously reported that he had supported permission for deep oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, desired only by Occidental Petroleum Corp., the source of much of his family's wealth. But federal help for Occidental and American Power and the potential for conflicts of interest fly beneath the radar in a capital where the hands of neither political party are clean. It is possible for Gore's diluted brand of populism to flourish because it is the way Washington works.
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