Columns
Harvey Wasserman
Bush/McCain's gas price scam is an Enron re-run
June 23, 2008
The Bush/McCain gas price escalation is an Enron Re-Run. It is Chapter
2 of the scam Bush crony "Kenny Boy" Lay used in 1999-2001 to steal
$100 billion from California ratepayers.
Now this administration is replicating that crisis to funnel untold
billions into the coffers of its oil baron backers…and to push the
failed strategies of offshore drilling and nuke power.
There is no doubt that we are at the edge of the petro-abyss. Peak oil
is upon us, as is the global-warmed finale of Earth's carrying
capacity for burning more fossil fuels. It is the perfect storm that
must end the age of fossil/nuke.
But the immediate situation is not so clear. Bush/McCain say soaring
prices are due to a lack of supply, and there are those who agree.
The Saudis, and others with more credibility, argue the price rise is
contrived by bankers and speculators. Their mega-theft comes not only
at the gas pump, but in food prices and other essentials.
Whatever the case, remember that during the Enron con, there was no
shortage of electric generating capacity. Enron's operatives laughed
into their PCs as they selectively shut perfectly operable power
stations and jacked up electric prices 700% and more. Enron, of
course, later went bankrupt, wiping out countless thousands.
Contrived or otherwise, today's soaring gas prices are a tangible
bonanza for Bush/McCain. Off-shore drilling would put billions in
their cronies' pockets, but would not lower gas prices a single cent.
Nuke power could mean billions more in radioactive lucre for reactor
builders who may never deliver a single electron of electricity.
It's no accident that what Bush/McCain are NOT advocating is a massive
****ft to increased efficiency and renewable energy.
Prior to the Enron disaster, green power advocates proposed that some
600 megawatts of renewables and efficiency be installed in California.
They said this "floor" was needed to protect the state from precisely
the kind of gouging Enron then did.
But Southern California Edison's John Bryson helped kill the green
power proposal. Bryson now likes to be photographed in front of
photovoltaic arrays. But he used a deregulation package promising a
"free market in energy" to help pay off failed reactors at San Onofre
and Diablo Canyon. Then he stepped back while Enron cashed in.
Today, despite years of grassroots advocacy, Bush has done everything
in his power to squelch the conversion to a green-powered economy.
Even as gas prices soar there is no meaningful commitment to reviving
mass transit, increasing fuel efficiency, or promoting renewable
energy.
Indeed, Bush/McCain's two-step obsession with fossil fuels and nuke
power is perfectly suited to guarantee that the public's money does
NOT go to renewables and efficiency. Those technologies could actually
solve both the climate and the energy supply crisis. But they would
strip the fossil/nuke cartels of their death grip on the global
economy.
Ironically, soaring fossil fuel prices make building reactors even
more expensive. Using high gas prices to push nukes that only produce
electricity (and radioactive waste) is a complete disconnect.
Today's wind and solar technologies are far cheaper than atomic
energy, not to mention quicker to build, safer, more reliable and
ecologically sound. The one thing certain about reactor construction
is that it will stretch out years longer than planned. Capital costs
are certain to at least double or triple before the first reactor
could ever come on line, taking atomic energy totally out of the price
range of renewables.
New drilling is also absurd. The off-shore and other protected areas
Bush/McCain would destroy have limited, expensive oil beneath them.
The GOP "energy plan" is that of a desperate junkie, tearing apart the
planet for a few last grains of white powder to snort up its nose.
That there will then be no more does not seem to matter.
The US once had the world's greatest mass transit system, which was
consciously destroyed by the auto and oil industries to sell more cars
and gas.
It once had a virtual monopoly on the renewable and efficiency
technologies that can solve global warming and give us energy
independence, with local communities taking control of their energy
supply.
Enron's hucksters staged that fake electricity crisis to gouge
California while pu****ng back the transition to a green-powered
economy.
Now Enron II, the gas price crisis, is about gouging the whole nation.
And about yet again postponing a community-owned, green-powered
future.
The Solartopian conversion to renewables and efficiency could put the
Bush/McCain barons of fossil nuke out of business. The sooner the
better.
---
Harvey Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! is at www.solartopia.org. His LAST
ENERGY WAR, from http://sevenstories.com
tells the history of
deregulation and the US utility industry. He is senior editor of
http://freepress.org,
where this article first appeared.
http://freepress.org/columns/display/7/2008/1660
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