Bushwhacked_ Life in George W. Bush's America Large Print - Molly Ivins [94]
Like Annas, Enron traders had to prepare for hot weather.
“What we did was overbook the line we had the rights on during a shortage or in a heat wave,” a former Enron trader told Jason Leopold, who is writing a book on the energy crisis in California. “We did this in June 2000, when the Bay Area was going through a heat wave and the ISO [the state’s grid operator] couldn’t send power to the north. The ISO has to pay Enron to free up the line in order to send power to San Francisco to keep the lights on. By the time they agreed to pay us, rolling blackouts had already hit California and the price for electricity went through the roof.”
Fabian wasn’t the only Enron ex to go public with his story. Dorgan confronted White with the public admissions of former Enron exec Steve Barth who said, “This was like The Perfect Storm. First our traders were able to buy power for $250 in California, sell it to Arizona for $1,200, then resell it to California for five times that amount.” Dorgan then said to White, “EES—the organization you ran—were able to go in to large companies and say, ‘You sign a ten-year contract with us, and we’ll save you millions.’ ”
Were these guys smart, or what?
When he was appointed, White must have looked like the perfect candidate for W. Bush’s cabinet. A former general, out there with a shoeshine and a smile, selling kilowatts and conservation to California and privatized utilities services to the Army. When he filled out the financial-disclosure form required of cabinet officials, White owned between $25 and $50 million in Enron shares, $25 to $50 million in stock options, and $5 to $25 million in phantom stock awards—a promise to pay a future bonus in appreciated stock or its cash equivalent. Not bad for the vice chair of the Enron division that lost $500 million while billions were being extracted from California.
You’ll be happy to learn White made out like a bandit on his Florida mansion, too. He agreed to lower his gate and the Naples city council agreed to let him build his wall. The mansion is understated and elegant. It’s a modern take on a classic English manor designed by one of the region’s finest architects. The house is nicely situated on a $6.5 million lot on the prestigious Gulf Shore Drive in a town where address matters.
Thomas White was quietly sacked as secretary of the Army by Donald Rumsfeld immediately after Gulf War II. We’d be amazed if you even heard about it, the media were so focused on our great victory. In the meantime, White sold his Florida house for $13.9 million—picking up a tidy profit of $3.4 million. For a guy whose division at Enron never made a dime, he’s done awfully well. But it would have been a nice gesture if the Whites had invited the Ramseys down to visit before they sold the house. Just because Tim Ramsey lost a million dollars in the Enron debacle doesn’t mean he actually paid for 20 percent of White’s $5 million house. Of course not. Not really. But he’s one of the somebodies who paid. Ramsey put in thirty-five years and is still testing circuits and climbing power poles in Oregon, trying to figure out how he can retire. Hey, you know, just a couple of Vietnam-era vets at Enron, and the stories came out a little differently. Not that the system is rigged or anything.
13.
God in the White House
I appreciate that question because I, in the state of Texas, had heard a lot of discussion about a faith-based initiative eroding the important bridge between church and state.
—GEORGE W. BUSH, WASHINGTON, D.C., JANUARY 29, 2001
Dubya Bush may not have noticed, but the Texas Legislature began rebuilding the important “bridge” that separates church and state about the time he started selling his “faith-based” social-welfare program to the U.S. Congress. To be precise, the second week of his administration.
In Washington Bush was announcing a plan to direct billions in federal funds to faith-based social-service organizations,