The good guys are the people of the Snohomish County Public Utility District. When the Utility decided not to pay into the sinkhole of Enron's bankruptcy the boys in Houston filed suit to collect for their outrageous energy contracts. Snohomish fought back, and asked for tapes they presumed would document the dastardly deeds of Kenny Boy and Mr. Skilling. There are two issues raised below the fold that ought to make some lawmakers think about what happens when the power companies have the power. And, a third issue comes from the fact that federal regulators saw no reason to review the tapes initially, and then objected when the little power-company-that-could demanded to see them.
see Washington Post
Some additional information and discussion about the article below the fold.
Should other agencies and districts cheated by Enron have standing to sue to recoup losses? Everett School District cut its electricity consumption 12 percent in 2000 but still had a nearly 100 percent increase in powers costs. To pay the bill, it cut the school budget by almost $1 million, equal to annual spending for textbooks or the salaries of 15 teachers. Across the West, the power crisis reduced economic growth by $35 billion, cost nearly 600,000 jobs and helped deepen a recession, according to a peer-reviewed economic study.
Should a FERC administrative judge be the one making decisions about Enron contracts?
In the litigious aftermath of Enron's bankruptcy, Snohomish County Public Utility District pushed to obtain the tapes over federal objections, exclusively transcribed them and starting last summer has gleefully fed transcripts of Enron's skulduggery to courts and the news media.
The release of the transcripts is part of a legal and public relations strategy by Snohomish that has deepened Enron's humiliation, put pressure on federal energy regulators (who didn't bother listening to the tapes until after the Snohomish utility released them to the press) and may save about $420 for each of the utility's 295,000 customers.
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