Criminal trial related to California energy crisis may start soon

[Wilms]

December 4, 2005

Criminal trial related to California energy crisis may start soon

by Jason Leopold

Despite the last minute delay in the criminal trial, the case still appears to be a slam dunk for the prosecution, based on evidence already submitted by the government against Reliant, a spokesman for the Justice Department said.

Snip

FERC released the transcripts in late November 2002 after the Wall Street Journal sued the commission to obtain a full copy of its report. Had the evidence been released before the collapse of Enron, it may have helped California's case, but it would have hurt the Bush's National Energy Policy, which was made public instead in May 2001, the same month Williams and FERC hatched a settlement. During this time, Bush visited California and met with Gov. Davis to discuss the energy crisis. Bush told Davis he could not do anything to help the state.

A few weeks before the meeting between Bush and Davis, Vice President Dick Cheney, who chairs Bush's energy task force, was interviewed by PBS's "Frontline" for a special series on California's energy crisis. During the interview, Cheney flat-out denied that energy companies ripped off California.

Snip

Reliant, along with Entergy and TXU, two other major electricity corporations based in Texas, hired Diane Allbaugh as a lobbyist. Allbaugh is the wife of Joe Allbaugh, "the only member of Bush's so-called iron triangle of trusted Texas cohorts to have served on the energy task force" and a director of the Federal Energy Management Agency, according to an August 26, 2001, report in the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/20/2005/1601