Commentary - Timothy Carney: Enron’s favorite bill gets its day in the sun

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Global warming regulation hit the big stage this week, as the Senate proceeded to debate on the energy-regulation-and-subsidies bill known as Lieberman-Warner. The bill’s other names include “America’s Climate Security Act” and “S.2151,” but it includes so much of the big-government favoritism and regulatory profiteering desired by one former energy giant, it should probably be dubbed “The Enron Bill.”

Enron is not alive today to profit from the artificial markets, subsidies and other goodies in the measure aptly dubbed “the largest pork bill ever” by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., but its spirit persists, embodied in today’s leading regulatory robber barons, General Electric, Alcoa and others.

In December 1997, hundreds of nations drafted the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, and a year later, President Clinton signed it. While the Clinton administration, including presidential candidate Al Gore, never pushed for Kyoto’s ratification, Enron lobbied furiously to get the U.S. on board.

Back on Aug. 4, 1997, Enron’s CEO Ken Lay met with Clinton and Gore to advocate for U.S. approval of Kyoto. Specifically, Lay was hoping the treaty would compel Congress to pass a “cap-and-trade” scheme: Manufacturers or energy companies would be prohibited from emitting greenhouse gases unless they “paid for” them with greenhouse gas allowances; if your company doesn’t have enough allowances to cover your emissions, you need to go out on the market and buy some, probably from someone who has reduced his or her emissions or earned allowances by planting trees or otherwise “offsetting” greenhouse gas emissions.

I’ve read the e-mails sent around Enron after Lay’s 1997 White House visit. “This will be good for Enron’s stock!” read one excited Enron memo, hopeful for Kyoto. Another declared that cap-and-trade would “do more to promote Enron’s business” than almost any other government policy could.

In late 1997, Lay put his name on an Austin American-Statesman op-ed boosting Kyoto, calling it “a tremendous opportunity to stimulate realistic climate solutions.” When Republicans took over the White House in 2001, Lay didn’t give up. He got the ear of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill hoping to get the Bush White House to push for Kyoto’s ratification.

How would Enron get rich off of Kyoto and cap-and-trade? In much the same ways today’s “responsible” corporations plan to profit from the constrained energy market caused by Lieberman-Warner.

First, Enron was the leader in natural-gas pipelines. Greenhouse gas restrictions increase the price of coal and oil, driving up demand for natural gas and thus natural-gas pipelines. Also, Enron planned on becoming the leading broker in greenhouse gas allowances. Just as it had made riches trading natural gas contracts, Enron planned to become a carbon dioxide dealer — buying up allowances, lobbying to pocket free allowances from government, and then selling them off.

Also — and this shows how these environmental laws can do little or nothing for the environment, while hurting consumers and profiting the companies with the biggest bottom line — Enron was building coal-fired power plants in Third World countries not covered by Kyoto; if America’s and Europe’s coal-fired plants had to shut down under greenhouse gas constraints, Enron would pay less for its coal.

Today, well-connected firms are lobbying for Lieberman and Warner’s Enron bill, which is the same environmentally dubious corporate boondoggle Enron had hoped Kyoto would spur.

General Electric has created a new business called GHG Services, which plans to pick up Enron’s CO2-dealing business, including winning free allowances through lobbying efforts.

Alcoa, similar to Enron’s coal gambit, makes much of its aluminum offshore, and so its energy-intensive manufacturing will be untouched by the Enron bill, while its lighter end-products (such as car frames) will be worth more.

Lieberman’s No. 1 donor, United Technologies, stands to profit handsomely from this bill’s research and development subsidies.

The early business coalition for cap-and-trade has become divided recently on the Enron Bill as it currently stands, and so it probably won’t become law until next year. But it’s all a bit sad — if this same bill had become law just seven years ago, the country and every family that pays utility bills, buys groceries and drives might be poorer, but those Enron shareholders would be much better off.

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