Maybe that commercial is closer than to the truth than I thought ......
Regards
Delainey
---------------------- Forwarded by David W Delainey/HOU/ECT on 05/12/2000 
02:22 PM ---------------------------
   
	Enron North America Corp.
	
	From:  David L Fairley                           05/12/2000 01:11 PM
	

To: David W Delainey/HOU/ECT@ECT, Janet R Dietrich/HOU/ECT@ECT, Ozzie 
Pagan/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:  
Subject: Emissions: Utilities Secretly Lobbied Congress; Electric Firms Gave 
Millions to Left and ...

FYI, see article below.  This is beginning to get a lot of attention.


---------------------- Forwarded by David L Fairley/HOU/ECT on 05/12/2000 
01:09 PM ---------------------------
   
	
	
	From:  Christi L Nicolay                           05/11/2000 09:21 AM
	

To: Kevin M Presto/HOU/ECT@ECT, David L Fairley/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:  
Subject: Emissions: Utilities Secretly Lobbied Congress; Electric Firms Gave 
Millions to Left and ...

See utilities that funded this (in bold below).
---------------------- Forwarded by Christi L Nicolay/HOU/ECT on 05/11/2000 
09:19 AM ---------------------------


Maureen McVicker@EES
05/11/2000 09:12 AM
To: PUBLIC AFFAIRS
cc:  
Subject: Emissions: Utilities Secretly Lobbied Congress; Electric Firms Gave 
Millions to Left and ...

F Y I
______________________________________________________________________________
_____________

A Section
Utilities Secretly Lobbied Congress; Electric Firms Gave Millions to
Left and Right to Halt Deregulation
John Mintz

05/11/2000
The Washington Post
FINAL
A01
Copyright 2000, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved

  Some of the nation's largest electric utilities have secretly
funneled millions of dollars through two front groups--one headed by
well-known conservative leaders to appeal to Republicans, the other
affiliated with unions--to stop Congress from deregulating their
industry.

  The campaign, which at times was run out of the offices of the
utilities' CEOs, was so secret that some Washington lobbyists for
these same companies were kept in the dark about many of its
activities, according to documents stamped "confidential" by the
effort's organizers.
  The documents offer an inside view of the industry's
clandestine efforts to wage its political battle through newly minted
entities with innocuous-sounding names. While the use of such groups
has become a common device in lobbying campaigns, it is rare to obtain
a detailed operator's manual for such an effort, complete with candid
assessments of individual lawmakers' vulnerabilities and specific
budgets for waging grass-roots campaigns in their districts.

  Although the two groups--the conservative Citizens for State
Power and the liberal Electric Utility Shareholders Alliance--have
advertised heavily against deregulation, until now only those involved
in the effort knew the organizations were the creation of the same
network of utilities. This network believed using seemingly
independent surrogates made their case more believable and shielded
them from political risk.

  A 1998 memo said the utilities ran the groups in an
arm's-length way described as "discreet, guarded and highly
confidential. . . . Fear of congressional reprisals conditioned this
style. . . . It would be prudent to avoid rash openness."

  Their ongoing "grass roots" lobbying campaign was designed to
influence members of Congress by whipping up hometown ferment with
radio ads directing listeners to call "1-800-BAD-BILL" and telephone
banks wired to connect angry home district residents to congressional
offices.

  The goal of the operation, on which the utilities spent $17
million over the last 3 1/2 years, was to bottle up legislation in a
single congressional panel, the House Commerce Committee's energy and
power subcommittee.

  The utilities' stealth campaign is one reason energy
deregulation legislation has been stalled, although last fall one
partial deregulation bill was reported to the full committee. Commerce
Chairman Thomas J. Bliley Jr. (R-Va.) is a staunch industry critic
determined to move a bill.

  The documents describe meetings in Washington steak houses such
as Sam & Harry's where utility lobbyists and consultants shaped
strategies for stopping Bliley. The dozen or so participants in the
operation--who called their effort "The Project"--address each other
in the memos with the kind of blunt talk that isn't often found in
civics textbooks.

  "The trendline is ominous in that a spirit of accommodation and
compromise is definitely taking hold," said one document in 1998, when
the utilities feared Bliley was winning over committee colleagues.
"The number one goal of 'The Project' has always been to bottleneck
legislation."

  The participants speak of the need to "demonize" the federal
agency that regulates utilities and to use debates about nuclear power
as "a highly provocative wedge issue" to destabilize legislative
adversaries.

  The memos were given to The Washington Post by deregulation
advocates, and participants in "The Project" confirmed their
authenticity.

  The effort has outraged some congressional advocates of power
deregulation. Rep. Steve Largent (R-Okla.)--whom the conservative
front group, Citizens for State Power, attacked in home district radio
ads last year--said it is "bogus" for a group to claim the
conservative mantle by protecting big utilities.

  "They're wearing a conservative hat, but they ought to be
wearing a profit-making hat," said Largent. "The best interest of
conservatives is to create competition."

  Citizens for State Power (CSP) is headed by two leading lights
of the conservative movement--anti-tax and Republican activist Grover
Norquist, and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative
Union--and is run day-to-day by a veteran GOP operative, Craig
Shirley. It denied for years that it took industry funds, but in
recent years acknowledged taking some such money while offering no
details.

  The Electric Utility Shareholders Alliance (EUSA) also was
created by utility funds, with the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers kicking in small sums. It acknowledged some of its
utility backers a few years ago but uses populist language to argue
that federal deregulation would cause layoffs and hurt mom-and-pop
utility shareholders.

  The documents detail how the Washington political consultants
who run "The Project" call into action one or another of these two
groups depending on circumstances. They used the right-leaning CSP to
broadcast ads criticizing Largent in his conservative Tulsa district
and employed the more liberal EUSA to air commercials against Rep.
Rick White (R-Wash.), who a year later lost his seat representing a
more moderate Seattle district.

  In its effort to stymie federal deregulation, "The Project" at
times argued both sides of an issue before different audiences. Its
participants told environmentally minded legislators that various
deregulation bills weren't aggressive enough in reducing utility
pollution but dispatched others to argue to pro-business members that
Congress should not threaten deep emissions cuts.

  While energy deregulation is an arcane concept to the public,
it is an extraordinarily high-stakes struggle for the nation's $300
billion-a-year power industry. The battle pits investor-owned
utilities against large manufacturers that want cheap power and
independent power companies, such as Enron Corp., that want to compete
with utilities. For one House Commerce subcommittee markup last year,
lobbying firms paid temp workers to wait in line outside the hearing
room for two days so the firms would have seats at the markup.

  Most investor-owned utilities don't want the federal government
to deregulate their businesses and introduce competition. These
utilities say that if need be, they prefer that state legislatures and
state utilities commissions do the job because they are less
heavy-handed than federal officials. So far 26 states have taken the
step.

  Deregulation advocates say that the state efforts result in a
confusing regulatory checkerboard and that federal action would lower
energy prices and encourage investment in clean energy sources.

  Many top GOP leaders were eager to deregulate utilities when
they took over Congress in 1995, seeing it as a test of a bedrock
conservative principle: opening the marketplace to competition.

  Within months, a group of utilities sprang into action,
organized by a law firm with a thriving utility practice. The firm,
which now goes by the name Ryan, Phillips, Utrecht & MacKinnon,
enlisted several existing clients and, later, numerous other firms.

  Soon, the firm had brought in nine utilities that paid from
$300,000 to $700,000 a year to fund "The Project" during the years
they participated. The main corporate participants, the documents
said, were Carolina Power & Light, Florida Power & Light, Texas
Utilities, Illinois-based Commonwealth Edison, Reliant Energy
(formerly called Houston Industries), Ohio-based First Energy,
Michigan-based Consumers Energy, Florida-based TECO and Union Electric
Co. in Missouri.

  "The Project" was run by law firm partner Jeffrey MacKinnon, a
former top aide to Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of the House
subcommittee; and Tim Ridley, a former Democratic staff member in
Congress who now runs a firm specializing in "grass roots" lobbying
campaigns.

  They and the utilities ran the two front groups and supervised
more than 50 "mobilizations" in congressional districts, in which
radio aids were aired. Banks of trained telephone operators arranged
for home district residents to send telegrams or place calls to
congressional offices. The groups also arranged for influential
citizens in the members' home towns to spread their message--including
the car dealers who sold members their cars.

  While most of the ads were not particularly negative, others
used sarcasm or debatable statistics to attack their targets.

  The one broadcast against Largent said he was favoring "Boston,
bureaucrats and biomass" because the House member had joined with Rep.
Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) on a measure that industry officials said
could have required utilities to use alternative energy sources. A
memo from late 1998, six months before the campaign, gave a taste of
the utilities' displeasure with him, describing the firms as "highly
alarmed by Largent's obtuseness" and noting they "could make Largent's
life very uncomfortable."  Some congressional Republicans hold Citizens
for State Power
partially responsible for defeating White, who lost his swing seat to
a Democrat, Jay Inslee. A year before the November 1998 election, the
group aired an ad saying White wanted to raise utility rates by 35
percent, and it also circulated a poll and memo among political
professionals showing that White would be beaten easily, in part
because of his embrace of deregulation.

  "For the first time in this debate there were palpable
political consequences for appearing to support" deregulation, a June
1998 document said. "In the case of Rick White, those consequences
were direct and career threatening."

  White said he doubted the ads played much role in his defeat,
but he recalls his unease at realizing a GOP group was targeting him.

  "I was a loyal member of the Republican cause, and this was a
case of shooting a friend in the foot," he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com



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