seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/54921_energy18.shtml
MSNBC Cheney's energy plan benefited Enron in 17 ways, top Democrat says Friday, January 18, 2002 By SCOTT LINDLAW THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON -- A Democratic congressional leader says he documented 17 provisions in Vice President Dick Cheney's energy plan that benefited Enron, and demanded anew that the White House list contacts with the bankrupt energy trading company. The administration again refused yesterday, calling the request by Rep. Waxman, the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, has been asking Cheney since April to turn over records on whom he met with as he developed the national energy strategy. Cheney has refused, though the White House acknowledged that Enron representatives met six times with Cheney or his aides on energy issues last year. Enron has been the largest single donor to President Bush. Waxman said that because he was stonewalled, he did his own analysis of what Enron sought and what Enron got in the energy plan. "The analysis reveals that numerous policies in the White House energy plan are virtually identical to the positions Enron advocated," Waxman wrote Cheney in a letter dated Wednesday. Among the examples: energy deregulation initiatives, support for trading in energy derivatives, proposals to facilitate natural gas projects, and granting of eminent domain so power lines could be built more quickly and spur development in India. "This creates the unfortunate appearance that a large contributor received special access and obtained extraordinarily favorable results in the White House energy plan," Waxman wrote. His findings came as the administration was under intense scrutiny for its contacts with Enron in the weeks before it went bankrupt. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the energy plan contains only proposals that Bush and Cheney believed would help make the nation more energy-independent. "The allegation by Congressman Waxman that anything was put in that plan for political purposes is, of itself, a partisan waste of taxpayer money," Fleischer said. He promised that "the administration will continue to be forthcoming in answering questions and providing information." But he again declined to provide specific lists of contacts between the administration and Enron during energy task force meetings. Meanwhile, Teamsters leaders joined Bush in promoting the administration's plan to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, a project some unions back because it could create thousands of jobs. "This energy bill that we're working on is a jobs bill," Bush told about a dozen union executives yesterday at the national headquarters of the Teamsters, which represents some 15 million workers. Also at the table were executives from unions that represent the building trades, seafarers and carpenters. "And when we explore for power, US power, US energy in ANWR, we're not only helping us become less dependent on foreign sources of crude oil and foreign sources of energy," Bush said. "We're creating jobs for American workers, jobs so that men and women can put food on the table." Environmentalists strongly oppose many elements of the plan.
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