Cheney Suppressed Evidence in California Energy Crisis

[kpete]

Cheney Suppressed Evidence in California Energy Crisis
By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Thursday 19 July 2007

In-depth investigation shows how Vice President Dick Cheney pressured federal energy regulators to conceal evidence of widespread market manipulation by energy companies during the California electricity crisis in 2001.

In March 2001, while California's two largest utilities were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, and the state's electricity crisis was spiraling out of control, Vice President Dick Cheney summoned Curt Hebert, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to his office next to the White House for a hastily arranged meeting.

Cheney had just been informed by his longtime friend Thomas Cruikshank, the man who handpicked the vice president to succeed him at Halliburton in the mid-1990s, that federal energy regulators were close to completing an investigation into allegations that Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams Companies and AES Corporation of Arlington, Virginia had created an artificial power shortage in California in April and May of 2000 by shutting down a power plant for more than two weeks.

.......................


GOP Front Group Attacks Gray Davis, Shields Bush, Cheney

At the same time, Reed informed Rove and Cheney that his nonprofit, the American Taxpayers Alliance, a Republican front organization, would begin to air a series of scathing radio commercials taking aim at Davis's failure to tame the energy crisis in June 2001. The ads, Reed said, were aimed to shift attention away from Republicans in Washington and "back to Sacramento where it belongs." Reed added that the ads would leave Davis "bleeding like a stuck pig."

......................

The ads and the negative press Davis received helped set in motion a chain of events that would lead to a historic recall campaign and put Schwarzenegger in office.

What the public didn't know, however, is that Cheney and Rove recommended that Reed approach Reliant Energy, the firm that one of Cheney's energy task force advisers, Joseph Allbaugh, was affiliated with via his wife's lobbying for the company, to fund the radio spots, according to former Reliant executives involved in the matter. Reliant donated nearly $2 million of Reed's $3.2 annual budget, yet the company only reported spending a total of $340,000 on government lobbying in apparent violation of the law, according to the company's public records.

more at:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071907J.shtml

[DS1]

1. Ruthless. Crank up the costs, turn the screws on the people, then hit them with 9/11

so they'll forget the first part of the summer.

[acmavm]

2. Someone please tell me, when will we have enough on this guy

not only to impeach, but to insure he sees the inside of a prison cell.

Seems to me like he's already crossed that line a dozen times.

[Mugsy]

8. Those "confidential energy meetings".

It is becoming more and more obvious that if Cheney's "confidential energy meeting" documentation were ever made public, it would likely bury him in an avalanche of crimes and scandal (as we've always pretty much knew).

[mwb970]

16. Is there *anything* bad this monster isn't at the bottom of?

He should be imprisoned and executed before he can have his heart attack.

It is amazing that we seem to simply chuckle and tolerate Crazy Dick's every vile statement and crime. How is it that there is no significant outrage over the destruction of our country, carried out right before our eyes?

How pathetic. What a way for a nation to go out.

[Bitwit1234]

3. How many more phoney crisis have the republicans created

to throw an election in the republican column. I will say it over and over and over. I WOULD LOVE FOR CONGRESS AND ALL IT'S ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE START TO INVESTIGATE THE EVIL, SATANIST PERSON OF ALL TIME. KARL CHRISTIAN ROVE....get that middle name, how in the hell could such a person, be given the name CHRISTIAN.

[lynnertic]

4. My power bill has gone up 200%+ since 2000 and I use less e-

And now we see how it was made possible by Dick Cheney's obstruction of justice.

So will we get to renegotiate terms with PG&E now that corruption was found?

Probably not.

[OnionPatch]

45. No kidding!

Electric is like gold out here.

California was screwn!!

[Nickster]

5. If I'm not mistaken, isn't this the exact same info that Greg Palast put out already?

[mrdmk]

12. Greg Palast did say the White House knew of the problem and did nothing

Well actually, exasperated the problem by saying California created their own problem and had to deal with it.

It need to mention (because I am very pissed-off about this) people died during this farce, the Mob in the White House let people DIE. The press (the so-called fourth estate) did nothing but pass on bad information and marginalized anybody who spoke out. The state government was paralyzed by the Federal Government. $30,000,000,000 or more went from the coffers of California into Texas private business, I want our money back.

On September 10, 2001 Mr Bush Jr. poll numbers were at 50% and dropping fast. Just a fate of (bad) luck came the next day depending who you are.

Also needs to be mentioned that there are radio ads to use less electricity because of what happened six years ago and not to repeat the problem.

BTW Pete Wilson, Governor of California during the deregulation phase of California energy woes, now works in the White House. Wilson was the chief cheerleader of the energy deregulation movement.

[AntiFascist]

15. Keep in mind also that they were discussing using the surplus...

to fund the building of a high-speed electric train system in California. I wonder which fossil fuel interests might have opposed that idea and supported Cheney's endeavors?

[MisterP]

24. and of course "fuck granny," with the energy dealers laughing hysterically at the thought of

old West Coast women perishing in the heat because they caused a brown- or blackout

[Stephanie]

6. It would be great if Cheney could be tried and sentence before -

his heart gives out. Can we speed up the process, please?

[Reader Rabbit]

7. For Californians and their relatives, this was obvious when it happened.

Someone's electricity going out or not was entirely dependent on who you got your power from. In the Coachella Valley, the western half is serviced by Southern California Edison, a private company. The eastern half is serviced by Imperial Irrigation, a public works (rural electrification association). A major street runs down the middle of the valley, and if you live on the western side, your bills are twice as high as your brethren on the east side. Plus, you're far more likely to have power failures, blackouts, and brown outs.

Luckily, when I lived there, I was east of the dividing street, and my retired mother currently lives east of it as well. I feel sorry for the poor schmucks on the western side, paying through the nose for corporate profit, not to mention losing power in 100+ degree summer months, all to create the illusion of a crisis and to drive prices up further.

[kpete]

10. in San Diego

Repulicans get away with whatever they want to get away with...kp

[frylock]

37. fuckin a

[cascadiance]

9. Bush and FEMA also f'd us in California when they could have prevented the wildfires too!

... or at least severely limited its spread if they'd cleaned up the bark beetle mess like they arguably should have!

Gray Davis and a bipartisan group of California state politicians requested in APRIL of 2003 to get help from FEMA in cleaning up dead trees from national forests and other federal parklands that FEMA had jurisdiction over AND responsibility over that were real fire hazards due to the bark beetle infestations there. Bush's FEMA sat on this request until October 24th of 2003, a week before the devastating wildfires in California wreaked havoc... More details here:

http://www.rossde.com/editorials/edtl_Cal_fires.html

This was absolutely the worse way they could have handled things that arguably YET AGAIN provided greatly to an inadequate federal response to a natural disaster that had huge consequences. Had they at least turned them down earlier instead of sitting on this request for so long, perhaps Californian would have said to FEMA that we're taking over these national parklands and claiming them for the state so that we can do proper maintenance on these hazards, or something of that nature.

And who lost his job in the coming years after that? Gray Davis? WRONG PERSON RECALLED!

Impeach these bums!

[L. Coyote]

11. Arnold became the Gubernator, but who did Cheney and Rove want in the job?

I do not believe the scenario played out entirely as planned.

Who was the intended new governor in the overthrow plot?

[Sapere aude]

17. Arnold settled for pennies on the dollar. If I remember correctly Davis had proved that

California was ripped off to the tune of 9 billion dollars and Arnold settled for a few million.

[diane in sf]

19. Arnie essentially dismissed the suit against Enron. And he met with people

from Enron before his "election."

[Hell Hath No Fury]

21. Arnold WAS the choice...

Arnie had held secret meetings himself with energy people before the recall hit. One of the very first things he did as Gov was to settle a lawuit our attorney general had filed asking for the $7+ billion bilked from Californias by the energy companies -- Arnie settled for $2 and the suit was dropped.

The GOP has CA in their control, energy has their man in office, and Cheney's collusion with energy to game the system gets papered over.

Perfect little scam perpetrated on us. :mad:

[Felix Mala]

44. Don't forget Rush's part... His daily diatribe helped kick start the recall...

What did he get? How much did he sell his Enron stock for? What's his portfolio in AES and Halliburton look like?

[midnight]

13. Gee the speaker of the house is from California, and probably

had this information in her sites for a while. What will it take to put impeachment on the table.

[defendandprotect]

34. Actually, Sen. Barbara Boxer was very active in trying to uncover this energy scam --

I don't know what Nancy Pelosi was saying or doing about it at the time ?

There were huge losses to the CA state pensions and of course it also takes us to Enron --

and I don't think anyone has collected on their crimes -- and the damage they did to employees.

Of course, we had a dead Ken Lay --

dead men tell no tales.

[BrotherBuzz]

14. Moments like this are good times to visit the past

Fraud Traced to the White House

How California’s energy scam was inextricably linked to a war for oil scheme

By Katherine Yurica




This story begins with the California energy crisis, which started in 2000 and continued through the early months of 2001, when electricity prices spiked to their highest levels. Prices went from $12 per megawatt hour in 1998 to $200 in December 2000 to $250 in January 2001, and at times a megawatt cost $1,000.

One event occurred earlier. On July 13, 1998, employees of one of the two power-marketing centers in California watched incredulously as the wholesale price of $1 a megawatt hour spiked to $9,999, stayed at that price for four hours, then dropped to a penny. Someone was testing the system to find the limits of market exploitation. This incident was the earliest indication that the people and the state could become victims of fraud. The Sacramento Bee broke the story three years later, on May 6, 2001.

Today, Californians are still paying the costs of the debacle while according to state officials the power companies who manipulated the energy markets reaped more than $7.5 billion in unfair profits.

During those early months of the Bush administration, and even during the prior transition period, Dick Cheney was deeply involved in gathering information for a national energy policy. The intelligence he gathered would provide justification for a war against Iraq but would also place White House footprints all over a fraud scam. This is how it all happened.

Enter the Lead Villain

<snip>

http://www.yuricareport.com/PoliticalAnalysis/FraudinWhiteHouse.htm

It's a long read, but well worth the time spent. Interesting how many things Katherine pointed out in the past have borne true.

[Sapere aude]

18. I remember seeing Cheney on Russert's show saying how FERC was not going to help CA because it was

the fault of the people of CA therefore the federal government didn't have any role to play in the crisis.

The environmentalists were blamed for the lack of energy plants. The freepers called Davis, greyout Davis, all the radio stations played along.

Right wingers were getting screwed just as bad as everyone else yet they sucked the dick that was screwing them! They still will not believe the evidence here.

Pete Wilson and our repuke friends in San Diego, Orange County and Bakersfield got the deregulation in place, that was step number one!

[bluesmail]

20. Cheney's explosions at VP mansion in '01

I wouldn't be surprised if that was a secret tunnel for Escape when things got (like now) a bit uncomfortable.

[Uncle Joe]

22. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread kpete.

[BrklynLiberal]

23. Not one surprise in those facts..Only surprise is that the truth m;ay actually come out.

If their lips are moving, they are lying.

[ProudDad]

25. I lived through that phony "energy shortage"

in California..

Also for YEARS I paid through the nose 'cause Davis chickened out and then the groppensteroidenfuhrer finished selling us out to the "energy corporation" fucks!!!

I was inconvenienced more than you would ever believe by the artificial shortages in 2000.

I was raped by the huge electric bill increases we were saddled with after that.

This WAS the big issue that did Davis in (not his mindless support for State Murder and never paroling anyone - great fucking "democrat") but his kissing up to the energy corpos and letting them get away with murder...

Other than the fact that the groppensteroidenfuhrer is better on "Criminal Justice" and an even bigger suck-up to corporate Amerika (if anyone could be a bigger suck up than Davis was), it's hard to tell the difference between Davis and him.

I loath them both...

Someday, maybe California can elect another Democrat as Governor. They haven't had a real Democrat since the Browns...and Jerry wasn't that effective -- in fact Jerry got talked into taking "rehabilitation" out of the mission of the CDC...big mistake.

[Vidar]

26. K&R.

[ProudDad]

27. Energy is TOO GOD DAMN IMPORTANT

for those FUCKS in the for-profit world to have a fucking thing to do with -- just like Health Care!!!!

I'm glad I now live in an area served by a Muni electric company.

I recently found that they'll pay us $1 a Watt if we install a solar intertie system on our house!!! That would cover about 1/4 to 1/3 of the total system cost!!!

I'm so GLAD I'M FREE of that fascist electric company - PG&E...

And the reality of the PG&E bankruptcy/bailout is worse than your worst nightmares could conceive. It was a total sell-out of the customers

But I'm not too surprised. The extremely clever individual who was hired to manage it is a relative. He's a very smart fellow and used to be pretty progressive but his ethical system obviously went on hold during this job...or maybe we would have been screwed even worse if he hadn't been doing it...


cheney is probably the worst excuse for a human being that ever was involved in the Government of the United States. I think one would have to go to Hitler's Germany or Stalin's USSR or Pol Pot's Cambodia to find anyone who could equal cheney in EVIL...

[tanyev]

28. Well, no wonder he didn't have time to get a terrorism task force together.

:sarcasm:

[ProudDad]

29. PG&E - FUCKING BASTARDS - should fry in the chair next to cheney

"With a critical power shortage, rolling blackouts began on January 17, 2001. With little generating capacity of its own, and unable to sell electricity to consumers for more than it could buy it on the open market, PG&E was forced to enter bankruptcy April 6, 2001. The State of California bailed out the utility, the cost of this worsened an already bad state budget situation. This played an important part in the eventual recall of California Governor Gray Davis.

"PG&E emerged from bankruptcy in April 2004, after distributing $10.2 billion to hundreds of creditors. Its 4.8 million electricity customers are expected to pay an average $1,300 to $1,700 each in above-market prices through 2012.

"PG&E was one of the most profitable companies on the Fortune 500 list for 2005 with $4.5 billion in profits out of $11 billion in revenue."

<clip>

"PG&E and its predecessor companies have left a wide swath of polluted land in California from the by-products of its operations. It has also left significant land disturbances from its building of roads, power towers, power line rights of way and generating facilities."



I've tried to check it out -- it looks like those assholes at PG&E are charging residential customers $ .16 to $ .22 per Kilowatt hour. Here in Tucson -- Muni power -- It's 8.4 cents... and, as my other post details they PAY US to install solar!!!


There were lots of reasons for getting rid of the well named Gray Davis but this was probably NOT one of them..


Hell Hath is correct though, the groppensteroidenfuhrer WAS the repuke choice and darrell issa put up a couple million of his own ill-gotten gains to get it done...


"Issa came to national prominence when he contributed over $1.6 million to help fund a signature-gathering drive for the petition to recall Gray Davis. At the time he made the contribution, it was widely believed that Issa intended to place himself on the ballot to replace Davis. However, with only two days before the filing deadline, Issa announced that he would not run. Issa later said that his mission had been accomplished since Davis was recalled and he wanted to continue representing his district in Congress and work towards Middle East peace.

For the recall election, Issa endorsed Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. However, at one point in the campaign he actually suggested that people should vote against recalling Davis, concerned that Schwarzenegger and fellow Republican Tom McClintock would split votes and install Democratic lieutenant governor Cruz Bustamante as Davis' successor"

[smtpgirl]

30. Not surpirsed

Dark Dick has his handprints in lots of places, there will be more to come.

Too bad it wasn't focused on his appendage.

[Gman]

31. Cheney could arguably be the most prolific criminal at large right now

felony counts against Cheney could easily run into the hundreds over the last 6.5 years.

[Kablooie]

32. Yeh? So whatcha gonna do about, huh? huh? You pussies!

That's what we will hear from Cheney and crew.

And what happens?

The Democrats prove themselves pussies ... again.

[defendandprotect]

33. And we think we understand what is going on in our nation -- and with our "economy" -- what farce!!!

America -- run by criminals

[Octafish]

35. Gee. An ENRON Energy Policy. Who'da thunk it?

Freaking Kenny Boy needed natural gas in the baddest way from the Caspian to fire up his multibillion dollar LNG power plant in India.

The ENRON-Cheney-Taliban Connection?

Who knows what the others got, besides a piece of the action, I mean.

[Cha]

36. Yeah, we knew that...does

this mean the world is gonna know now?

[Warren DeMontague]

38. The Enron Documentary is a must-see on all this.

Particularly if you live in California. I knew a lot of the info beforehand, but it was still like watching a train wreck. For like an hour and a half, my jaw dropped.

http://www.enronmovie.com/

[annm4peace]

39. I still have PTSD from the manufactured energy crisis.

I was still in fresno, when this was going on. The Central Valley was hit the hardes.
I hope others can post their stories.
I couldn't believe what was happening. We knew the crisis was being manufactored.
Colleges were shut down for a month. depending on your zip code you knew you would be without electricity for 1-2 days. small business that depended on electricity went under like deli's.
beauty shops, smaller packing sheds. The big ones where able to get their electricity from Nevada.
That is why big farming in the Central Valley pours so much money in to assholes like Radanovich.

Worst was the children and elderly who died from heat related. people had to decide whether to cool their homes or eat. a small 3 bedroom home with the air conditioner set at 80 went from costing under 100 to 600 per month.

Just for the Manufacturing of the Energy Crisis, those involved like Cheney, Bush, Arnold, Radanovich should all be imprisoned.

I remember our state Reps trying to get Bush to put a cap on the price and make the Oil companies turn the generators back on.. but they wouldn't. And the main news wasn't reporting the Truth.
But we knew.. we had friends who worked at the dams where the generators were. And they knew they didn't need to be shut down.

I hope others post their stories. and thank god for greg Palast and Jason

[Warren DeMontague]

40. Yep. I knew it was bullshit at the time, too.

Particularly when the usual suspects tried to blame it on "Environmentalists".

All a big politics and money scam. Unbelievable.

[cui bono]

41. Now how did this get 53 recs???

Didn't anyone see it was written by Jason Leopold?



















:sarcasm:

[Kurovski]

42. K and R and may Cheney rot in hell...

Energy is ridiculous out here.

And even though we have hydropower, the fuckwads rigged it to be as expensive as the other shit BushCo is killing people for.

[donheld]

43. Cheney Suppressed Evidence in

Everything he's done when it comes to his job. :nuke: