From August 1999 to August 2000, power-plant shutdowns were up 461 percent while rates were skyrocketing, it reported. Meanwhile, in the fourth quarter of 2000, profits for utility and fuel companies at large leaped 87 percent above profits a year prior. A slew of other industries are simultaneously reporting sunken profits. Higher energy costs are at least partially blamed throughout stacks of disillusioning annual reports. Enron and its high-power energy buddies across the state of Texas are now being asked if they manipulated markets to gouge West Coast rate payers.
Truth is, no material proof has surfaced yet.
But one can learn a lot from reading the paper. She was behind the push to grant the energy industry its rare unchecked position in commodities trading. Many Portlanders probably don't even know PGE is owned by Enron, much less that Enron is one of George W. Bush's biggest campaign contributors and, coincidentally, a big winner in the president's recent onslaught of environmental rollbacks. For a bevy of reasons, the state of Texas has loomed large in my psyche in recent weeks. And for a bevy of reasons, Texas plays a critical role in the Northwest power crisis.