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News: 'Alternative minimum' will hit with a wallop-- ...Meanwhile, millions of middle-class families are getting saddled with a new tax that essentially lifts the burden off millionaires and socks it to Middle America. We're talking 36 million taxpayers, who will be forced to pay the "alternative minimum" tax by 2010 under the plan Congress passed last year. 9/24/02 Cable's
broken promises: Less competition, higher rates without local control From
heaven to hell Attack
plan is 'no' to them all JEB's outstretched hand......"When Jeb isn't campaigning these days, he seems to be walking around with his hand outstretched to every special interest with a bank account. A month ago, the Washington Post caught him lobbying his brother's administration on behalf of the Bacardi liquor company. By then a $50,000 check to the Florida GOP from Bacardi (whose former professional lobbyist Otto Reich is now an assistant secretary of state) presumably had cleared. Then yesterday, the St. Petersburg Times reported that Jeb had signed a bill hindering the removal of highway billboards by local communities in Florida, just one week after the Florida GOP took a couple of checks totaling $25,000 from an outdoor advertising mogul. Those checks had no influence on the governor's behavior, as his spokespersons assured the press in each instance. Of course not. By the way, here's a cool picture of Karl Eller, the gentleman who wrote those two checks that had nothing to do with the billboard legislation. He's smiling because he was picking up a Steuben glass eagle from the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, for winning its "lifetime achievement award." Dear Citizen, Florida's Bush/Enron Connection TimelineMarch 7, 2001 -- Enron Lobbyist Bill Bryant e-mails Gov.
Jeb Bush requesting a meeting between Enron chairman Ken Lay and Gov. Jeb
Bush to discuss energy deregulation. Enron took role in state policies Enron Corp. played a key, behind-the-scenes role in the formulation of Florida's energy deregulation plan -- Energy 2020. The Houston-based energy brokerage wanted Gov. Jeb Bush's administration to focus first on allowing independently owned power plants in Florida. That would allow Enron to quickly move into Florida and set up one of the first "merchant" plants, which sell their electricity to the highest bidder. Enron has been blocked from making money in Florida from merchant plants, because state laws ban plants that don't sell primarily to Florida customers. For the full article: http://www.heraldtribune.com/frontpage/story.cfm?ID=61780 .... A BuzzFlash Reader, NEWS ANALYSIS ARCHIVES, 2/17/02 Enron's grab for Florida's water a factor in collapseWhile Jeb Bush was running for Florida's governor in the
summer of 1998, Enron Corp., a fast-growing Houston energy broker, was
diversifying into a potentially lucrative new field — privatization of
water supplies. Even as Bush's secretary for the DEP was settling into his
office, top executives of Enron's water venture, Azurix Corp., were
seeking audiences with the new governor and his DEP chief David Struhs. Enron saw Florida as lucrative marketEnron has been staking a claim to Florida's future for years. The Texas company, which started as a pipeline operator but blossomed into a new-age, computer-assisted energy broker, hungered to create, snatch and protect lucrative Florida markets. Among its favorites were those most basic to the state's economy — water and electricity. Enron did it for the most part the way any company does, by seeking out growing markets and setting up shop. But it also brought its special brand of influence peddling to the Sunshine State, pouring $155,775 into the campaigns of elected officials since 1995 to ensure that it got a share of the profits. Only Texas and California politicians got more. .... (More) www.naplesnews.com/02/03/florida/d552360a.htm The Most Sinister Business Proposition the State Has Ever Had': Enron's Azurix Pitched Jeb To Privatize the Everglades' Water
"In 1999... leaders of an Enron Corp. subsidiary called Azurix
Corp. made Gov. Jeb Bush an extraordinary offer: They would help pay
Florida's multibillion-dollar share of the effort to replumb and revive
the Everglades -- if they could then sell water captured by the
project." The author shows his bias here. "Democrats were
quick to put a nastier spin on his Azurix flirtation. They noted that
Bush and his aides have expressed sympathy for the concept of
privatizing water. In fact, the think tank Bush started after losing the
1994 gubernatorial race, the Foundation for Florida's Future, published
a paper endorsing the idea in 1997 -- and the author later went to work
for Azurix... 'We almost sold out Florida's water to a company that was
falling apart,' said Nancy Brown, president of the Florida League of
Conservation Voters. 'Jeb is lucky we didn't, because he was totally
behind it.'" Hey, why did Jeb REALLY want to inject untreated water
(containing human and animal waste) into Florida's aquifers last year?
(Top)Enron tried to corner state waterThe company that was Enron never had much in the way of real assets. Now, it has plenty of liabilities, financial and political. Employees' lives are in ruins, organizations throughout the Houston area that expected money are hurting, and front-running political parties that once competed for Enron's money make a show of returning contributions, pretending that earlier donations didn't buy favors. So much that Enron touched has gone bad or will go bad. Imagine where South Florida might be if Enron had touched the region's water supply. In July 2000, Enron owned a company named Azurix, which wanted to privatize public water systems in the state. Azurix sponsored a Florida Chamber of Commerce conference in Naples. The conference decided that the public might benefit if a private company like Azurix bought into and managed the water system. Azurix had asked about financing all of the then-$7.8 billion Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Project in return for being able to sell the water. As it turned out, Azurix got in trouble before the South Florida Water Management District even could debate the issue. It's easy to think that it was a long shot under unique circumstances by a firm whose corporate parent had a pipeline to the president, who also is the Florida governor's brother. South Floridians had better hope that's the case. Private profit, public mess Those who would sell off the state's most important public asset operate under the mistaken assumption that every government service, not just functions such as garbage pickup, is a potential market. In fact, government has to run certain services because there shouldn't be or isn't a market for them. Schools won't work under private ownership because they can't bypass marginal markets, also known as difficult students. Privatizing services to poor people won't work because there's no profit in it. Still, the anti-government attitude of too many state legislators guarantees that privatization schemes will get hearings, if only because such schemes come with the promise of cutting the state payroll. Rather than determine where a private company can provide equal or better service for the same amount of money or less, however, privatization zealots ask only how many state jobs they can cut. Also, Gov. Bush's private foundation that he set up after losing for governor in 1994 suggested in 1997 that private water systems would encourage conservation more than the public system, which provides water free to utilities. Last year, the governor supported a bill in the Legislature that would have allowed near-statewide use of massive underground storage wells and permitted owners to pump in water contaminated with human and animal waste. The law would have taken effect before results from eight test wells around Lake Okeechobee showed whether the technology works and is safe. One theory among opponents was that private companies wanted to create the water equivalent of gasoline stations. According to Audubon of Florida, there's no talk at the moment of water trading, but there are proposals for landowners "capturing" stormwater runoff and owning it. A company with the connections Backers of energy deregulation insist that Enron's flameout doesn't mean deregulation is bad. California did it wrong, they say, because the state didn't have enough electric capacity. Maybe. As the drought showed, however, Florida can't whip up water capacity when the supply runs low. In the worse case, privatization would mean that in a severe drought, water companies would be like plywood sellers as a hurricane approaches. If you're thinking that this all sounds like a conspiracy theory, there was plenty of evidence to support it. When Azurix was pitching itself to Florida, one of its lobbyists was a former chairman of the water district board and a big supporter of Gov. Bush in 1998. Another Azurix lobbyist wrote the paper for the governor's foundation that supported private sale of water. Since taking office in 1999, Gov. Bush has refused to set up a dedicated, reliable source of money for the Everglades restoration plan. The free market punished Azurix before it could turn Florida water into
a market. Enron punished everyone but the executives who looted the
company. The state retirement fund did lose about $300 million on Enron
holdings. Had things gone differently, the damage for Florida could have
been much worse. Two Bushes in the Everglades (from Mother Jones August 2000)George W. Bush has rarely encountered a public problem that the private sector, in his view, cannot solve. Now the Republican presidential hopeful wants to unleash market forces on the Everglades. During a campaign swing through Florida in March, Bush made clear he believes the state should involve private enterprise in the effort to save the imperiled ecosystem. One of Bush's biggest campaign contributors couldn't agree more. Azurix, a Houston-based company formed by the energy giant Enron, has offered to pump millions of dollars of its own money into building reservoirs and storage wells designed to restore the Everglades. In return, the company wants permission to sell the water that supplies 6 million residents of South Florida. Enron, which controls more than two-thirds of Azurix, is Bush's No. 1 corporate patron. Federal records show that as of January the company had contributed $555,275 to his campaign. In Florida, Azurix officials have already met privately with Governor Jeb Bush, the candidate's brother, to pitch their proposal for privatization. Everyone involved in the restoration plan agrees that the Everglades are close to collapse. More than half of the original wetlands are gone. The population of wading birds has dropped to 10 percent of what it was a half century ago. Pollution is poisoning fish; tree islands that dot the saw grass prairies are rotting. Last year, state and federal officials agreed to split the tab on a $7.8 billion plan intended to reverse the environmental disaster and ensure water supplies for the next 50 years. Essentially a giant plumbing project, the plan would capture water flowing out of the Everglades and channel it back into the system, making the wetlands wetter. Enter Azurix. Last November, company executives met with Governor Bush to try to cash in on the Everglades. They offered to help the state pay its annual $200 million share of the restoration project -- in return for a state permit to sell the water to third parties for up to 30 years. It was as if a plumber had offered to do an expensive home-repair job for free -- as long as he could slap a meter on the sink. The state water district in South Florida normally grants water permits for no more than five years. Consumers are not charged for the water, only for the infrastructure to clean and deliver it. Under the Azurix plan, customers could end up paying not only for the pipe but for the water as well. According to Azurix officials, Governor Bush was open to their idea. "Jeb challenged us to be creative," says John Wodraska, managing director of Azurix. A former Florida water official who backed the Everglades restoration plan, Wodraska has also worked to befriend the governor's brother, giving the maximum $1,000 to the Bush presidential effort and $2,000 to Enron's political action committee. As Wodraska sees it, the issue is simple economics. "It's a question of do you believe in market concepts or do you believe in socialism," he says. But environmentalists worry that the free market will damage the Everglades rather than repair them. If a private company controls the flow of water in the Everglades, they note, it could have a financial incentive to route water to paying customers rather than to replenish the needy wetlands. "The highest bidder gets the commodity -- that's how the marketplace works," says Richard Grosso, executive director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Center in Fort Lauderdale. "Obviously the ecosystem doesn't have a lot of money, so it is going to lose." The Azurix initiative met with withering criticism when it became public last November. Jeb Bush has taken a wait-and-see approach, and for the moment the proposal appears to be on hold. But given Enron's campaign giving, the company may be hoping for a better reception with a Bush in the White House as well as the governor's mansion. "The camel's nose is in the tent on this, and I would not assume
that the issue is going away," says Grosso. "There is way too
much money to be made here." -- Jacob Bernstein
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