We recently received hard evidence to confirm what was suspected a long
time ago, that Enron (and other energy companies) deliberately created
an energy shortage here in California, right after Bush stole the 2000
election. Recently released audiotapes have revealed that Enron
plotted in January of 2001 to take a power plant offline DELIBERATELY
just to manipulate the price of energy.

I was alive back then, I remember the Republicans laughing at us and
blaming our Democratic Governor while we were suffering from those
rolling power black outs for the next several months here in N.
California. In April of 2002, Ken Lay met with Cheney and handed him a
3 page memo stating in effect that he wants the Bush administration to
stay out of it while California's entire economy and way of life was
being utterly destroyed and plundered out of billions of dollars.

An energy trader by the name of Bill Williams is heard telling a Nevada
official that the best time to take a power plant offline is during
periods of peak energy demand.

Here was their conversation:

Bill Williams: "We want you guys to get a little creative and come up
with a reason to go down."

Nevada Official: "OK, so we're coming down for some maintenance, like
a forced-outage type of thing? And that's cool."

Bill Williams: "Hopefully." (both men laughing)

And on the very next day, a Nevada plant was taken offline, just as
demand surged past available supply, and then rolling blackouts hit
millions of Californians, traffic lights suddenly went out on the
highways as drivers were killed and injured in traffic accidents, and
then hospitals suddenly went black while Doctors were in the middle of
surgery, and then businesses/industries thru out the State suddenly
blacked out and shut down, suffering billions of dollars in losses.

On April 17 of 2001, Ken Lay met with Cheney, he brought a memo asking
that the government should refrain from price caps or any other type of
relief for California.

Ken Lay's memo to Cheney read:

"The administration should reject any attempt to re-regulate wholesale
power markets by adopting price caps or returning to archaic methods of
determining the cost-base of wholesale power."

All indications are that the Bush administration gave Ken Lay and the
energy companies exactly what they wanted, everything that they wanted.

Abel

For more information, go to these links:

&

February 4, 2005

Tapes Show Enron Arranged Plant Shutdown

By TIMOTHY EGAN

EVERETT, Wash., Feb. 3 - In the midst of the California energy troubles
in early 2001, when power plants were under a federal order to deliver a
full output of electricity, the Enron Corporation arranged to take a
plant off-line on the same day that California was hit by rolling
blackouts, according to audiotapes of company traders released here on
Thursday.

The tapes and memorandums were made public by a small public utility
north of Seattle that is fighting Enron over a power contract. They
also showed that Enron, as early as 1998, was creating artificial energy
shortages and running up prices in Canada in advance of California's
larger experiment with deregulation.

The tapes provide new details of market manipulation during the
California energy crisis that produced blackouts and billions of dollars
of surcharges to homes and businesses on the West Coast in 2000 and
2001.

In one January 2001 telephone tape of an Enron trader the public utility
identified as Bill Williams and a Las Vegas energy official identified
only as Rich, an agreement was made to shut down a power plant providing
energy to California. The shutdown was set for an afternoon of peak
energy demand.

"This is going to be a word-of-mouth kind of thing," Mr. Williams says
on the tape. "We want you guys to get a little creative and come up with
a reason to go down." After agreeing to take the plant down, the Nevada
official questioned the reason. "O.K., so we're just coming down for
some maintenance, like a forced outage type of thing?" Rich asks. "And
that's cool?"

"Hopefully," Mr. Williams says, before both men laugh.

The next day, Jan. 17, 2001, as the plant was taken out of service, the
State of California called a power emergency, and rolling blackouts hit
up to a half-million consumers, according to daily logs of the western
power grid.

Officials with the Snohomish County Public Utility District in
Washington State, which released the tapes, said they believed Enron
officials had taken similar measures with other power plants. This tape,
they said, was proof of what was going on.

At the time, power plants in the greater West Coast grid were under a
federal emergency order to keep their plants running.

A spokeswoman for Enron, Jennifer Lowney, would not comment on the
tapes, citing a blanket policy of the energy trading company, which is
operating under bankruptcy protection and facing multiple criminal and
civil proceedings. "We continue to cooperate with all ongoing
investigations," she said.

Conversations between energy traders and power plants were routinely
recorded to give a record of transactions. The tapes were part of a
large seizure of evidence by the F.B.I. The Snohomish County utility,
which is in a court battle with Enron, obtained them through a legal
action.

Previous tapes released by the district last summer showed Enron
officials joking about how they were "stealing" more than a $1 million a
day from California and fleecing "Grandma Millie" while bringing Enron
record profits.

Other tapes released on Thursday showed Enron executives discussing
their fear of going to jail for manipulating power markets in Canada and
the United States. And memos showed that Enron practiced as early as
1998 to create artificial shortages and run up prices and extend the
market manipulation to Canada.

Three former Enron traders have pleaded guilty to federal criminal
charges of fraudulently manipulating the West Coast energy market.
Enron's former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, and former president, Jeffrey
K. Skilling, are under federal indictment for fraud.

In cooperating with federal officials, West Coast traders have told how
they devised schemes named "Death Star" and "Get Shorty" to make
billions of dollars out of California's disastrous experiment with
energy deregulation.

But until the tapes were released on Thursday, there had been few public
details of how Enron set in motion the phony power shortages.

Company officials had long denied that they illegally shut down plants
to create artificial shortages. In March 2001 - two months after the
recording showed how the Nevada plant was shut down- Mr. Lay called any
claims of market manipulation "conspiracy theories."

Memos uncovered by Snohomish County also show that Enron rewarded
midlevel executives based on their performance in manipulating the West
Coast market.

The tapes and memos were filed this week with the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, as part of a broad investigation into how much
money was lost by Enron market manipulation. Snohomish County is seeking
to void a $122 million lawsuit by Enron over an energy contract the
utility said was based on fraud.

I was alive back then, I remember the Republicans laughing at us and
blaming our Democratic Governor

We recently received hard evidence to confirm what was suspected a long
time ago, that Enron (and other energy companies) deliberately created
an energy shortage here in California, right after Bush stole the 2000
election. Recently released audiotapes have revealed that Enron
plotted in January of 2001 to take a power plant offline DELIBERATELY
just to manipulate the price of energy