Enron saved Florida

a Palm Beach Post Editorial

Friday, June 11, 2004 In one conversation, a top manager in Enron's Portland, Ore., office gloats about how the firm's trading practices "just (expletive deleted) California... to the tune of a million bucks or two a day." In another, energy traders laugh about how much money they scammed from poor grandmothers. Transcripts of taped telephone conversations among Enron's energy traders as they were playing games with the West Coast's energy markets during the 2000-01 power crisis are shocking for the cynicism they reveal, even after all the disclosures about Enron and its management. Filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of a Seattle-area public utility district's attempt to recover $2 billion in unjust profits, the transcripts leave little doubt that Enron manipulated the Western electricity markets to profit unfairly. CBS News aired portions of the tapes last week, prompting California's senators to write FERC seeking $9 billion in refunds for their state. In a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, California is trying to recover the money from Enron and other companies -- many of which are bankrupt. California's mess, where deregulation became a game for predators, probably saved Floridians from being similarly scammed. Until the California debacle and Enron's collapse in late 2001, deregulation was a priority for Gov. Bush. In December 2001, his Energy 2020 Study Commission produced a 130-page blueprint for deregulating power in Florida. After California and the Enron meltdown, nobody talked about deregulation. No bill has tried to turn the commission's recommendations into law. FERC is the federal agency that should have stepped in to protect consumers from billions in losses but did not. One reason is that ex-Enron CEO Ken Lay, a major donor to the Bush campaign, had arranged commission appointments at FERC for two strong deregulation advocates. Florida and other states saw deregulation as inevitable, even if many in the Legislature weren't sure that it was desirable. Other states have done deregulation much better than California. The next time Florida considers it, however, someone needs to play those Enron tapes to show what can happen without strong rules to keep pirates from taking over.