MSM, Enron, and Obama's Green Energy Policy

On December 2, 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy – at that time, the largest filing in US history. The Washington Post, the New York Times, and Nightline (to name three) reported that former Enron Chairman Ken Lay was a major fundraiser for President George W. Bush. While Enron’s accounting practices were less than exemplary, there are factors that the MSM is ignoring about the ten year old Bush-Enron connection and the current Obama-Goldman Sachs connection, as well as the Obama Energy Policy-Enron similarity.

The New York Times reported in January, 2002, that “President Bush is seeking to play down his relationship with Enron’s embattled chairman, Kenneth L. Lay. But their ties are broad and deep and go back many years, and the relationship has been beneficial to both.” At that time, Bush had received $151,722.42 (inflation-adjusted) from Enron employees. Yet the MSM manages to ignore Obama’s $1,007,370.85 in contributions from Goldman Sachs employees in 2008. Obama received almost seven times as much as Bush. Further, Goldman Sachs was one of the chief beneficiaries of the TARP bailout package.

But enough about the MSM (non)reporting. Let’s examine the similarities between Enron and Obama’s current energy policy fiasco.

Enron is now defunct, but its intellectually bankrupt “green energy” model is alive and well in the Obama Administration. Enron, under (the late) Ken Lay, wanted to become the world’s leading renewable energy company. Sound familiar? Let’s see what Enron was doing:

• Entered the solar business with 50% of Solarexin 1994.
• Entered wind manufacturing and project development with the purchase of Zond Corporationin 1997.
• Tried to create a market maker in air emissions trading with sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), sought to do the same with the much larger CO2 emissions market. This was why Enron became the first major U.S. energy company to endorse cap-and-trade as climate-change policy.
• Endorsed the Kyoto Protocol agreement in late 1997. “This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!” said an Enron executive in Kyoto.

Enron’s green initiatives were more about exploiting taxpayers than saving the planet. Enron CEO Jeff Skilling said “We are a green company, but the ‘green’ stands for money.” We have seen the political rejection of cap-and-trade for greenhouse-gas emission reductions, as well as the breakup of green-jobs policy, thanks to the Obama administration’s friends at Solyndra, Tonopah, Beacon Power, and other Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee recipients.

And here is more information about the Obama-Enron connection. A Houston fundraiser, held on November 1, 2011, featured first lady Michelle Obama at the home of a former Enron executive John Arnold. Arnold is part of a movement to convert public pensions to 401(k)-style plans, an action that has angered some local Democrats.   [emphasis mine]

So here we have history repeating itself, and the MSM “somehow” (said very sarcastically) manages to ignore the entire similarity.

But that’s just my opinion.