Enron hires lobbyist to collect PUD fees (for services not delivered)

[Robbien]

WASHINGTON — Enron, the bankrupt and scandal-ridden energy company, is playing one last card to pry $125 million in contract-termination fees from Snohomish County utility ratepayers to give to its creditors. Enron has hired a lobbyist to help overturn Sen. Maria Cantwell's amendment to the Senate energy bill that could save customers in Washington and Nevada from paying Enron hundreds of millions of dollars in contract-termination fees.

. . .
"This is Enron reaching out from the grave to throttle taxpayers," said Stephen Ryan, of Manatt Phelphs, a lobby firm representing Nevada's power companies. Cantwell was equally irate. "I'm outraged that Enron thinks they can come in at the 11th hour and make ratepayers pay for this," she said. "They're not even a company with a running business, and they're here lobbying."

Cantwell said she heard about Enron hiring a lobbyist on Friday as she was boarding a plane back to Seattle. "I just didn't believe it," she said. Neither did Al Aldrich, governmental-affairs director of the Snohomish County Public Utility District (PUD), which canceled its energy contract with Enron in 2001, just days before the company declared bankruptcy. "We have tons of evidence of Enron's fraud. This is irony upon irony and insult piled on top of insult," Aldrich said.

The $125 million in contract-termination fees Enron wants represents nearly a fourth of the PUD's budget. The PUD would have to raise rates 25 percent for a year to cover the fees, Aldrich said.

. . .

Members of Enron's creditors committee, which include JPMorgan Chase and Reliant, have lobbied heavily against Cantwell's amendment. In addition to being Enron's largest creditor, JPMorgan was accused of helping hide Enron's debt, and in June agreed to pay Enron investors $2.2 billion. Several of the House and Senate energy-bill conferees have received thousands of dollars in political contributions from Enron, its creditors and Weil Gotshal.


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002391110_enron20.html

[acmavm]

1. The view of the corrupt and powerful is that if they get caught committing

an illegal act it's not their responsibility to pay for it. All they really need to do is find some way to foist the burden on the American tax payer. That way they can go about what they do best. Fleecing the public.

[fasttense]

2. Corporate CEOs and the idle rich think they are above the law

They think they are better than the middle class that support them and they think they can do anything they want. Steal, lie, cheat, overturn laws that protect the middle class and minorities. They learned from Hitler, the KKK and Nazi organizations to use the pathetic institutions we call churches, media and government to support their every whim. It's been that way for years. Slavery never helped the middle class, it was always for the rich. Before the depression it was only the rich who did well. Even during the Savings and Loan scandals, the energy corporations scandals, the dot com bubble and now the housing bubble, only the rich made millions while the middle class paid the bill. This is how the repukes want it. This is what Jerry Falwell and the other millionaire evangelist want. No one getting ahead except for them.

[salin]

3. What congressman represents this area?

If it is represented by a republican - start using this NOW - to apply pressure. Theme - Enron and related Utilities, through fraud, jacked up your utility bills back in the energy corporation-created "energy crisis" - and now the GOP congress wants YOU to pay enron - again through a 25% rate increase... to pay for terminating a contract with the fraudster's Enron.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. Snohomish County leans red.

[OregonBlue]

5. Is it Inslee

Democrat Jay Inslee has been working on legislation that would prevent PUD's from having to pay cancellation fees if it can be proven that the terms of the contracts were fraudulent. I think he represents Snohomish.