The rise and fall of the house of Enron should trigger comprehensive investigations–civil, criminal and Congressional. The full scope of relations between Enron and its cronies in the Bush Administration must be dragged out into the sunlight. Miscreants should be prosecuted, and fundamental reforms enacted to bring corporations back to public accountability.
Desperately trying to put a lid on the cascading scandals, White House spokesmen have insisted that since Bush officials did nothing when Enron chairman Ken Lay warned them about its impending collapse, there is no political scandal, only a financial one. Don’t fall for that.
The largest scandal, as Robert Borosage suggests on page 4, is not just what was done illegally but what was done legally–for example, the failure of Bush Cabinet members to warn small investors and employees that Enron was going down and that its executives were bailing out. Or the slick way Enron gouged billions from Western energy consumers while its planted head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Pat Wood, ignored the pleas of Western governors for price controls. Or Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill’s torpedoing of the Clinton Administration’s attempt to regulate offshore tax havens, a direct benefit to Enron, among others. Or Enron officials’ six meetings with Vice President Cheney to help shape Bush’s energy plan. What is Cheney hiding by refusing to reveal the names of those FERC met with?
Clearly, the full range of Administration contacts with Enron should be probed. This will reveal how crony capitalism works and what must be done to curb it. Congress must begin the hard task of rebuilding the legal framework for corporate accountability. As William Greider writes on page 11, Enron’s demise reveals that all the supposed checks on executive plunder–accountants, stock analysts, independent board members, regulatory agencies–were either short-circuited or inactive. We need bold reform now. And Congress should take a close look at pensions, boosting defined-benefit plans and returning 401(k) plans to the supplement they were intended to be. And of course Enron once again illustrates the corrosive corruption of big-money politics.
With the House and the White House in Republican hands, Democrats in the Senate, sadly, will have to take the lead in ferreting out the facts and defining the necessary reforms. “Sadly” because too many Senate Democrats mirror Republicans in pocketing corporate bucks and parroting the deregulation/privatization line that comes with them. The chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, Joseph Lieberman, was leader of the corporate-funded Democratic Leadership Council and a founder of New Democrat Network, the proud recipient of Enron contributions. Last year Lieberman blew off the probe of Enron’s connections to the California energy crisis. He now has another chance to show if he stands with his voters or his contributors.
Enron’s bankruptcy is the largest in US history, but it is not unique. It is a product of the conservative offensive to unfetter corporations by dismantling hard-won public protections. Given that freedom, Enron’s executives–and their brethren–gouged consumers, fleeced investors, even betrayed their own employees. It’s time for Congress and the people to put an end to Enronomics and call corporate marauders to account.
