Posted on 12/09/2003 8:22:16 PM PST by cookcounty
Late Final
December 06, 2003
Does Howard Dean Have An "Enron" Problem?
Excerpts:
Did then-Gov. Howard Dean's administration approve a $180 million sweetheart deal to the boys at Entergy, at the same time utility executives were pumping campaign contributions into his then-fledgling campaign for president?
And did that deal wrongfully stick Vermont taxpayers with high electricity rates for ten years?
They are questions Dean may find himself having to answer on the campaign trail, as he repeatedly invokes the Enron scandals in an effort to link the Bush Administration to "Ken Lay and the boys at Enron."
The Dean Administration's Public Service Board last year gave thumbs up to the sale of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant to Entergy Corp. Conservationists opposed the deal, and the board rejected a rival energy company's bid to buy the plant a year earlier.
What was different about Entergy's bid to buy the plant that hadn't already been rejected by the Dean Administration? Not much, says Vermont's Conservation Law Foundation - except critical campaign contributions to Dean's presidential campaign at the time the deal was under review.>p?
Vermont utility executives got complete access to the Dean Administration's Public Service Department to pressure a deal on Vermont Yankee that will give the utilities some $25 million for their corporate coffers, and lock ratepayers into high-priced energy costs for the next ten years. This sweetheart deal was struck just after certain utility officials made political contributions to the Governor's presidential bid. Meanwhile, environmental groups didn't get the time of day.
And as usual, ratepayers get stiffed. For years to come, Vermont ratepayers will be forced to pay above-market power costs - more than $100 million -- to Entergy to buy back Vermont Yankee power, while power prices drop everywhere else in New England.
How did the AP put it?
MONTPELIER — When Gov. Howard Dean wanted to raise money for a possible presidential bid, he followed the example of a former governor of Texas and called on his friends in the energy industry.
Nearly a fifth of the roughly $111,000 collected in its first months by Dean’s presidential political action committee, the Fund for a Healthy America, came from people with ties to Vermont’s electric utilities, according to a recent Federal Elections Commission filing.
It should be no surprise. Dean and utility executives have had a long and friendly relationship.
Early contributions to Dean's Fund For A Healthy America included $1,000 from a top executive of Green Mountain Power, one of the power companies involved in the Vermont Yankee negotiations, and $5,000 from an executive of the company that operated Vermont Yankee.
One-fifth of $111,000 isn't much, compared to Dean's more than $25 million raised through the end of the third quarter. However, the period involved was critical for Dean: Early 2002 was well before Dean's Internet fundraising operation was open for business. It represented critical seed money for Dean's presidential effort at the time his campaign was in its larval stage.
And about Vermont rate payers...
The Dean Administration said the Vermont Yankee deal would cut power costs. But the Conservation Law Foundation ran the numbers, and said it just wasn't so:
That means that Vermonters will shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in excess power costs to Entergy. In fact, the utilities' recent forecast numbers are so low that it's probably cheaper to close the plant today rather than to force Vermonters to continue to subsidize nuclear power.
If reporters and critics begin to throw questions to Dean regarding his role in the Vermont Yankee sale, ironically, he may need to turn to his gubernatorial papers to show everything was on the up-and-up. Right now, he's defending his move to conceal those records from public view for ten years and taking heat on that front. Posted by Ed Moltzen at December 6, 2003 04:02 PM
(Excerpt) Read more at latefinal.com ...
It may explain the constantly forced smile...
I wonder about the boys.....
The House is unlivable, the yard is AstroTurf, The cars are his neighbors and none of the toys are functional. The main problem is that all the lights are on, but nobody's home
The rats will open every door and even invent doors where there are just peep holes.
I say around Aug 2004 we hit Dean will everything and save some for a week before the election just like the rats would do !
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