Enron & Energy Feature
The collapse of Enron Corporation offers yet another dramatic reversal of fortune for a company that benefited enormously (and, perhaps, illicitly) from the stock market surge of the late 1990s. As the Enron scandal deepens - and the media frenzy increases - visit this page for links to reliable information and to access (in transcript and audio) the Commonwealth Club's recent programs on Enron and Energy.
COMMONWEALTH CLUB SPEAKERS ON ENRON & ENERGY| Joe Berardino Former CEO, Anderson Worldwide "We're going out of business....Once our government decided to indict my firm, there was just absolutely no way we could keep the firm together...." |
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| Jeffrey Skilling Former CEO, Enron Corp. "…customers…don't have to come to us: we don't have a monopoly." |
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| Steve Forbes President and CEO, Forbes, Inc. "Ken Lay, the head of Enron, had better be careful, because he’s going to be portrayed as the new Darth Vader/Bill Gates of the American economy." |
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| Ralph Nader Former Presidential Candidate (2000), Green Party; Consumer Advocate "Enron reflects the breakdown of a lot of watchdog institutions: the Board of Directors failed; outside corporate law firms and accounting firms failed; state and federal regulators failed. And Enron played the same game of contributing to Democrats and Republicans in Washington." |
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| Christopher Hitchens Author & Columnist, Vanity Fair, The Nation "You can't call it a conflict of interest because what strikes you about it is the absolute unity of interests - between this gang of robbers and the gang of politicians who they sponsored…" |
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| Fred Keeley Speaker Pro-Tem, California State Assembly "…it doesn’t matter whether there is a Democrat president, a Republican president, a Green president, or a president from Mars – apparently the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission views its obligation and responsibility as being that of a protector of markets, not a protector of consumers." |
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| Energy Crisis Panel "…[the] energy crisis in fact has very little to do with energy. It has a great deal to do with greed.... The price for a megawatt of power only a few years ago was $30. It is now peaking over $2000." |
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| Amory Lovins Physicist; CEO (Research), Rocky Mountain Institute "…the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has had the duty since at least 1935 of insuring that wholesale electric prices nationwide are just and reasonable. In the midst of this crisis they radically abdicated that responsibility…" |
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| Joseph Lieberman Former Member, U.S. Senate (D-CT) "…our troubles were not caused by energy deregulation. They were caused more by judicial interposition." |
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MEDIA RESOURCES ON ENRON BANKRUPTCY SCANDAL
"Enron as Whitewater" by Jacob Weisberg
Slate's chief political correspondent examines the similarities between the Whitewater scandal during the Clinton presidency and links between Bush staffers and Enron executives - and asks: "Is moral superiority a political trait worth having?"
> Visit Salon's special report on Enron.
"Bush to Lay: What Was Your Name Again?" by Robert Scheer
Documenting the close personal and financial connections between Enron CEO Ken Lay and George W. Bush, L.A. Times columnist Scheer examines "whether the contacts between them were actually illegal and not merely an egregious betrayal of Enron's employees, shareholders, and consumers…"
> Also read William Greider's piece in The Nation on "Enron's Rise and Fall."
"Missing the Forest for the Trees" by Adam Lioz
Democracy advocate at U.S. PIRG, Lioz argues that the Enron scandal point to a fundamental flaw in our system of government: "The biggest scandal here is not personal corruption -- it's systemic corruption. It's how the very wealthy decide who gets to run for office in the first place -- and then who wins. Through large contributions, Enron, Andersen, and their executives helped put their supporters into office."
"Dabhol Darkness" by Prabir Purkayastha
Purkayastha examines the larger national consequences of Enron's decision to pull out of a $2.9-billion power plant in Dabhol, India, including the possibility that the Indian banks that lent $1.2 billion to the Dabhol plant project may now lose that money altogether.
"The Enron Story That Waited To Be Told" by Howard Kurtz
Kurtz examines why it took so long for the Enron story to break…and how the media approached the energy giant prior to its meltdown.
> Visit The Washington Post for more on Enron.
Center for Responsive Politics
The latest information on Enron's congressional and presidential campaign contributions, dating back to 1989.
Business 2.0
Offers links to unique sources of information on the Enron bankruptcy, including the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Southern District of New York, CNET, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services - and more…
Forbes
Forbes has been tracking the Enron scandal from the beginning and has compiled a significant library of revealing articles on the subject of "Enron's Endgame."
Houston Chronicle
Get the news and views from Enron's hometown newspaper, including stories from Enron employees, lists of the company's creditors and articles dating back to October.
Get the British perspective on the Enron debacle from these in-depth reports by The Guardian, the BBC, and The Financial Times.
Marwan Muasher
Arianna Huffington
Ben Stein