[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11094-11095]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 GROSS AND OFFENSIVE OUTRAGES REGARDING ENERGY CRISIS OF 2000 AND 2001

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Feeney). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, there are some outrages that are so gross 
and offensive that even if it takes years to right them, we should do 
that, and one of those outrages is the energy crisis of 2000 and 2001 
on the West Coast of the United States.
  But in fact there are two outrages involving the energy crisis in the 
Western United States. The first outrage is that Enron and various 
other traders gouged over hundreds of millions of dollars from 
consumers in the western United States. But the second and perhaps 
equal outrage is that the Federal Government, under the Bush 
administration, has been wholly ineffectual in getting back the money 
that has been stolen from consumers in the Western United States. These 
are two outrages.
  Today and the last few days we have now discovered over 2,000 hours 
of taped conversations between Enron traders and others that clearly 
show the way that they stole hundreds of millions of dollars from 
consumers in the Western United States.
  Those were discovered because of the great work of a small public 
utility district, the Snohomish PUD in Snohomish, Washington, that 
finally let us

[[Page 11095]]

know, to get a window of the horrendous theft that went on, and I just 
want to quote a couple of things that the Enron traders talked about as 
they were stealing from the consumers of the West Coast.
  Here is one trader, Tim Beldon, who since pleaded guilty to criminal 
fraud charges, who said, ``Grandmothers were taken at the tune of a 
million bucks or two a day.'' Taken. They were taken due to the 
outright fraud of Enron.
  Another quote from an employee who can be heard asking, ``Do you know 
when you started overscheduling and making buckets of money on that?'' 
Well, the buckets of money that they made came right out of the pockets 
of consumers.
  The last quote, we heard traders of Enron saying basically, ``Isn't 
it great that we jammed grandmothers for millions of dollars?''
  Well, it is not great that they ``jammed'' grandmothers on the West 
Coast of the United States, and that needs to be fixed by the Federal 
Government.
  But the second outrage is that our Federal Government and this 
administration has acted essentially like the Keystone Cops in doing 
nothing effective to get back these millions of dollars from our 
consumers. In Snohomish County, Washington, we have had 50 percent 
increases in electrical rates as a result of this gouging, and yet the 
FERC, the Federal Electric Regulatory Commission, and the Bush 
administration has done nothing to get this money back for the 
consumers.
  Next week, when the energy bill is on the floor of the House, I will 
be offering an amendment to compel FERC, to compel the Bush 
administration to get off the dime and get this money back that has 
been stolen. They have acted with all the energy of Barney Fife on 
this, and it is time for them to do the job and get this money back for 
ratepayers.
  Now, why has this not happened? Why has the Bush administration sat 
on their hands while this theft occurred? Well, I have to tell you that 
we have done everything humanly possible to get the administration, the 
President and the Vice President, to act on this.
  In fact, during this crisis in 2000 and 2001, we asked the Vice 
President to personally intercede. Do you know what he did? On April 
17, 2001, he met with Ken Lay of Enron; and they apparently talked 
about the energy crisis. And what after that conversation did they do? 
Two days later, the Vice President came out, Mr. Cheney came out on 
April 19 and said, ``We think price caps simply don't work.'' And they 
did nothing effectual to solve this problem.
  In fact, we had a meeting with the Vice President when this was going 
on, and we told the Vice President of this, at the very time there were 
brownouts in California, we told the Vice President of the United 
States that over 30 percent of the generating capacity in America was 
turned off. Obviously, to anyone who knew anything about energy, people 
were gaming this system. And we pleaded with the Vice President to help 
us.
  After we laid out all of these facts and circumstances, these are 
several Members of Congress and myself to the Vice President, he looked 
at us in our eyes and simply said, ``You know what is wrong with you? 
You just don't understand economics.''
  Well, we do understand economics. We just do not understand Enronics. 
We just do not understand a Vice President who wants to talk to Ken Lay 
but will not lift a finger to help American consumers to get these 
hundreds of millions of dollars back that were stolen. We do not 
understand a Vice President who says let those grandmothers be jammed, 
and we are not going to help.
  We are going to have an amendment next week to solve this problem.

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