- One year ago today, the lights went out. Even when the
Big Blackout ended, the power pirates who have us by the bulbs kept us
in the dark, fibbing, fabricating and faking their way through a series
of bogus excuses for a disaster created by greed overload.
-
- Instead of fixing the system, the fix is in. We now know
that goof-ups and bone-headed moves started the power outage rolling; but
it's spread, from a few tree branches out of Ohio to a third of the continent,
occurred because power companies -- First Energy and Niagara-Mohawk to
name two -- had slashed staffing and maintenance.
-
- The under-manning and the under-spending all occurred
beneath the banner of "deregulation." In the bad old days of
bureaucrats with thick rule books, the government told the power companies
exactly how much to spend on repairs. Under "deregulation," the
rules went out the windows and repair cash was carted off as special dividends
to stockholders.
-
- I'm sitting here with Jerry Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor,
two of this planet's most respected experts on electricity systems. They
are just shaking their heads in disgust: nothing learned a year after the
disaster. Rather, we have a blackout on reason, with "deregulation"
-- the disease -- sold as the cure.
-
- George Bush's Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is
allowing the power companies to reach into our wallets and take out more
cash to add wires to the transmission system -- in effect replacing the
loot these guys carted off in the last ten years of deregulation. "But
that won't keep the lights on," says Oppenheim, former Assistant Attorney
General in New York in charge of investigating utilities. "It's not
a lack of wires or lack of power plants that caused the blackout. The Administration
is adding complexity to an overly complex system
- all to avoid acting on the obvious conclusion: deregulation
has failed."
-
- As long as the lights are still on, I'm reprinting the
commentary I wrote one year ago on my dying laptop ...
-
-
- OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB IN WHITE HOUSE
-
- ZNet - August 14, 2003 -- I can tell you all about the
ne're-do-wells that sent us back to the Dark Ages last week. I came up
against these characters -- First Energy and the Niagara Mohawk Power Company
-- some years back. You see, before I was a journalist, I worked for a
living, as an investigator of corporate racketeers.
-
- The power outage began in First Energy's Ohio operation.
This company was the model for the film, "China Syndrome." Really.
Then First Energy's Pennsylvania unit fumbled the power ball. These are
the very same Homer Simpsons who melted Three Mile Island.
-
- Next, Niagara-Mohawk blacked out and took down New York.
Ni-Mo's claim to fame goes back to the 1980s. They built a nuclear plant,
Nine Mile Point, a brutally costly piece of hot junk for which NiMo and
its partner companies charged billions to New York State's electricity
ratepayers.
-
- To pull off this grand theft by kilowatt, the NiMo-led
consortium fabricated cost and schedule reports, then performed a Harry
Potter job on the account books. In 1988, I showed a jury a memo from an
executive from one partner, Long Island Lighting, giving a lesson to a
NiMo honcho on how to lie to government regulators. The jury ordered LILCO
to pay $4.3billion and, ultimately, put them out of business.
-
- I'm not surprised that the Three Stooges of the power
industry knocked their heads together and blacked us out. What's surprising
is that the US media is clueless about how we ended up with Larry, Moe
and Curley in control of our nation's electronic lifeline.
-
- Here's what happened. After LILCO was hammered by the
law, after government regulators slammed Niagara Mohawk and dozens of other
book-cooking, document-doctoring utility companies all over America with
fines and penalties totaling in the tens of billions of dollars, the industry
leaders got together to swear never to break the regulations again. Their
plan was not to follow the rules, but to ELIMINATE the rules. They called
it "deregulation."
-
- It was like a committee of bank robbers figuring out
how to make safecracking legal.
-
- But they dare not launch the scheme in the USA. Rather,
in 1990, one devious little bunch of operators out of Texas, Houston Natural
Gas, operating under the alias "Enron," talked an over-the-edge
free-market fanatic, Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, into licensing
the first completely deregulated power plant in the hemisphere.
-
- And so began an economic disease called "regulatory
reform" that spread faster than SARS. Notably, Enron rewarded Thatcher's
Energy Minister, one Lord Wakeham, with a bushel of dollar bills for 'consulting'
services and a seat on Enron's board of directors. The English experiment
proved the viability of Enron's new industrial formula: that the enthusiasm
of politicians for deregulation was in direct proportion to the payola
provided by power companies.
-
- The power elite first moved on England because they knew
Americans wouldn't swallow the deregulation snake oil easily. The USA had
gotten used to cheap power available at the flick of a switch. This was
the legacy of Franklin Roosevelt who, in 1933, caged the man he thought
to be the last of the power pirates, Samuel Insull. Wall Street wheeler-dealer
Insull created the Power Trust, and six decades before Ken Lay, faked account
books and ripped off consumers. To frustrate Insull and his ilk, FR gave
us the Federal Power Commission and the Public Utilities Holding Company
Act which told electricity companies where to stand and salute. Detailed
regulations limited charges to real expenditures plus a government-set
profit. The laws banned power "trading" and required companies
to keep the lights on under threat of arrest -- no blackout blackmail to
hike rates.
-
- Of particular significance as I write here in the dark,
regulators told utilities exactly how much they had to spend to insure
the system stayed in repair and the lights stayed on. Bureaucrats crawled
along the wire and, like me, crawled through the account books, to make
sure the power execs spent customers' money on parts and labor. If they
didn't, we'd whack'm over the head with our thick rule books. Did we get
in the way of these businessmen's entrepreneurial spirit? Damn right we
did.
-
- Most important, FDR banned political contributions from
utility companies -- no 'soft' money, no 'hard' money, no money PERIOD.
-
- But then came George the First. In 1992, just prior to
is departure from the White House, President Bush Senior gave the power
industry one long deep-through-the-teeth kiss good-bye: federal deregulation
of electricity. It was a legacy he wanted to leave for his son, the gratitude
of power companies which ponied up $16 million for the Republican campaign
of 2000, seven times the sum they gave Democrats.
-
- But Poppy Bush's gift of deregulating of wholesale prices
set by the feds only got the power pirates halfway to the plunder of Joe
Ratepayer. For the big payday they needed deregulation at the state level.
There were only two states, California and Texas, big enough and Republican
enough to put the electricity market con into operation.
-
- California fell first. The power companies spent $39
million to defeat a 1998 referendum pushed by Ralph Nader which would have
blocked the de-reg scam. Another $37 million was spent on lobbying and
lubricating the campaign coffers of the state's politicians to write a
lie into law: in the deregulation act's preamble, the Legislature promised
that deregulation would reduce electricity bills by 20%. In fact, when
in the first California city to go "lawless," San Diego, the
20% savings became a 300% jump in surcharges.
-
- Enron circled California and licked its lips. As the
number one contributor to the George W. Bush campaigns, it was confident
about the future. With just a half dozen other companies it controlled
at times 100% of the available power capacity needed to keep the Golden
State lit. Their motto, "your money or your lights."
-
- Enron and its comrades played the system like a broken
ATM machine, yanking out the bills. For example, in the shamelessly fixed
"auctions" for electricity held by the state, Enron bid, in one
instance, to supply 500 megawatts of electricity over a 15 megawatt line.
That's like pouring a gallon of gasoline into a thimble-- the lines would
burn up if they attempted it. Faced with blackout because of Enron's destructive
bid, the state was willing to pay anything to keep the lights on.
-
- And the state did. According to Dr. Anjali Sheffrin,
economist with the California State Independent System Operator which directs
power deliveries, between May and November 2000, three power giants physically
or "economically" withheld power from the state and concocted
enough false bids to cost the California customers over $6.2 billion in
excess charges.
-
- It took until December 20, 2000, with the lights going
out on the Golden Gate, for President Bill Clinton, once a deregulation
booster, to find his lost Democratic soul and impose price caps in California
and ban Enron from the market.
-
- But the light-bulb buccaneers didn't have to wait long
to put their hooks back into the treasure chest. Within seventy-two hours
of moving into the White House, while he was still sweeping out the inaugural
champagne bottles, George Bush the Second reversed Clinton's executive
order and put the power pirates back in business in California. Enron,
Reliant (aka Houston Industries), TXU (aka Texas Utilities) and the others
who had economically snipped California's wires knew they could count on
Dubya, who as governor of the Lone Star state cut them the richest deregulation
deal in America.
-
- Meanwhile, the deregulation bug made it to New York where
Republican Governor George Pataki and his industry-picked utility commissioners
ripped the lid off electric bills and relieved my old friends at Niagara
Mohawk of the expensive obligation to properly fund the maintenance of
the grid system.
- And the Pataki-Bush Axis of Weasels permitted something
that must have former New York governor Roosevelt spinning in his wheelchair
in Heaven: They allowed a foreign company, the notoriously incompetent
National Grid of England, to buy up NiMo, get rid of 800 workers and pocket
most of their wages - producing a bonus for NiMo stockholders approaching
$90 million.
-
-
- Is last week's black-out a surprise? Heck, no, not to
us in the field who've watched Bush's buddies flick the switches across
the globe. In Brazil, Houston Industries seized ownership of Rio de Janeiro's
electric company. The Texans (aided by their French partners) fired workers,
raised prices, cut maintenance expenditures and, CLICK! the juice went
out so often the locals now call it, "Rio Dark."
-
- So too the free-market British buckaroos controlling
Niagara Mohawk raised prices, slashed staff, cut maintenance and CLICK!
-- New York joins Brazil in the Dark Ages.
-
- Californians have found the solution to the deregulation
disaster: re-call the only governor in the nation with the cojones to stand
up to the electricity price fixers. And unlike Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov.
Gray Davis stood alone against the bad guys without using a body double.
Davis called Reliant Corp of Houston a pack of "pirates" --and
now he'll walk the plank for daring to stand up to the Texas marauders.
-
- So where's the President? Just before he landed on the
deck of the Abe Lincoln, the White House was so concerned about our brave
troops facing the foe that they used the cover of war for a new push in
Congress for yet more electricity deregulation. This has a certain logic:
there's no sense defeating Iraq if a hostile regime remains in California.
-
- Sitting in the dark, as my laptop battery runs low, I
suspected the truth about deregulation will never see the light -- until
we change the dim bulb in the White House.
-
- -----
-
- Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller,
"The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (Penguin USA) and with Theo
MacGregor and Jerrold Oppenheim, "Democracy and Regulation,"
a guide to electricity deregulation published by the United Nations/Pluto
Press, winner of the ACLU's 2004 Freedom of Expression Award. www.DemocracyAndRegulation.com
-
- See Palast's reports for BBC Television and the Guardian
papers of Britain at www.GregPalast.com. Interviews/reprints: Media@gregpalast.com
-
-
- Comment
- From Ted Twietmeyer
- tedtw@frontiernet.net
- 8-15-4
-
- Perhaps a better title is "BLIMEY -Give me a ruddy
candle and a match, thankyou."
-
- As a reluctant consumer of Niagra-Agony-Mohawk left-handed
electricity, I can testify that Greg Palast is exactly correct about them.
When our area received letters that "National Grid Co." taking
control of NM, we knew no good thing would come of this. The MBA bean counters
would start their mental exercises, to prove they deserved the cubicle
they occupied, and began by dumping people in the street right away to
"cut costs."
-
- My recent phone call to them was about losing power
here, which is on the average of 1 to 2 times per month. No one called
me back from Agony Mohawk (say it isn't so.) I called the pinheads again,
this time climbing the ladder a rung or two in their pecking order, and
getting really angry about it. My anger come from the fact that my wife
must have certain health equipment FUNCTIONAL on a moment's notice. After
all my efforts, I only received the canned answer "yess-sir. I'll
submit another order to call ya. Is there anything else I can do for you
?" I said no, yawned and hung up. Sure they'll call. Time to call
the NYS Public Service Commission...if they still exist.
-
- Of course, the scam about getting an alternative energy
supplier is the worst lie every perpetrated on the American people. WHY
? BECAUSE THEY ALL USE THE SAME POLES, TRANSFORMERS AND WIRES !
-
- About two weeks latter, a letter arrives in the mail
that's very much like the canned letters which gullible people get from
their efforts to write lord Bush. Agony Mohawk starts out after the intro,
" We strive to give our customers...." blah blah blahblah
blah blahblah blah blahblah blah blah. I tossed it at that point,
after a wave of nausea swept over me like a Tsunami flushing the Canary
Islands.
-
- To save MORE money, Agony Mohawk recently installed
new remote digital meters. Not the type that calls into a phone network
or neighborhood RF private network. No, these are read by trucks driving
by. Now they can fire more good people and breadwinners. And the meter
is really quite humerous, because through the glass cover you can read
a bright red warning label from across the yard, about "Dangerous
risk of lethal electric shock." Yes, that's true. But only as long
as the power is on to shock you. Is the label warning THEIR people in
case they forget ? Many people are electrocuted because when they grab
a live wire, their muscles contract and won't allow them to let go. That
cannot happen here, because the power will go out soon enough. Just wait
for it, you'll live.
-
- Just last week, the power went out AGAIN abruptly at
sundown. Called them up, and immediately reported it via their AUTOMATED
system by pressing 1, pressing 2, etc... And the wonderful system, actually
asks you TWICE "is the power on at your location ? Press 1 for yes,
press 2 for no."
-
- Of course, the standard "no information is available"
was blasted over the phone. After a couple hours with no power, I was getting
concerned for my wife's health, in case a certain piece of equipment needed
to used. I could use an inverter I have with the car - but refrigerated
medicine is another matter. The canned message said the power was out in
5 other named communities. Not good. I heard from a friend down the road,
that a pole was burning about 3 miles from our home. I hopped into the
car and drove in the general direction. Computer-withdrawl was beginning
to set in. A mile up the road, were the familiar multitude of yellow revolving
lights. Otherwise these are known as "no-power-for-you-while-we're-standing-here-thinking."
And sure enough, they were doing just that.
- The thought crossed my mind to offer them my ALUMINUM
extension ladder, but I managed to fight off the temptation to ask them.
-
- What I saw was incredible. A cross beam about 100 feet
in the air held three high tension lines. The top of the pole was still
burning, and the top 10 feet was now missing. The cross beam that was bolted
to the now missing pole, had fallen neatly on top of another crossbeam.
It looked like a train wreck in the sky. According to the lineman, "the
three 36,000 volt distribution lines dropped on the three 16,000 volt lines."
What a mess. Two other men, were striving to pull a BIG utility truck out
of the mud. They tried to go "off road" with it - needless to
say it was too heavy. It looked like a scene from Abbott and Costello,
and the idea of waiting around for one to slap the other was enticing.
-
- Its hard to imagine the surge that sent to other substations,
tripping breakers in a 30 mile radius. So much for the "safeguards"
we were all promised years ago - in the last blackout they had that Greg
Palast wrote about. The lineman told me he had just installed that same
new pole just 4 years ago, and power would be on "early morning."
-
- When I got home, I rang them up again. When I queried
for information, I was told "no further information was availble."
Still. Power was off for about 12 hours.
-
- But here's the joke - even though this is the second
pole to get burned, they installed A NEW POLE IN THE VERY SAME SPOT the
last burned one was in. Three strikes you're out ? No, they think Murphy's
Law has been repealed.
-
- The lineman blamed the fire on lightning from a storm
he said happened YESTERDAY. I began to ponder what amazing science was
present behind a 12 hour delayed fire. And in a rainstorm. The structures
at the top of the new pole I saw the next day, are EXACTLY the same as
the old ones. So the lights are on now - but for how long ? I FULLY expect
to lose power Sunday night, when the remnants of the tropical storms in
the southeast USA come rambling through here.
-
- The question is, not IF the British electricity will
stop flowing, but when and for how long. After watching a documentary of
how the new double-decker Airbus will be built in sections made all over
Europe, I'm certain of one thing. I'm NOT flying on it. Not ever. Just
thinking about the ill-fated Euro-SST is enough to give you fear of flying
forever.
-
- Who says that "lightning doesn't strike twice
in the same place ?" Another myth. Ask the people that own the Empire
State Building, or the people at the shuttle launch pads. When I was down
at NASA on business many times years ago, they told me the towers on the
pads are hit many times every month. The giant while pole on top of each
launch pads with a point on them are not antennas. They are actually a
lightning rods.
-
- So now National Grid owns Agony Mohawk, and who knows
how many other utility companies. Consequently, they are now all BRITISH
OWNED UTILITIES. How lucky we are (?) But may God have mercy on any customer
when who owes Agony Mohawk money. They will be right out with wire cutters,
after break time is over. I'm waiting for a letter to arrive stating that
my bill must be paid in British Pounds, instead of US dollars. The concept
of reliable energy is now a distant memory. I can smell their "kippers"
burning on the stove...while someone is trans-fixed, staring at the "telly."
-
- If you send me hate email, I probably won't be able
to answer it. I'll be busy getting candles, cleaning kerosene lamp chimneys
and trimming wicks for the next outage. Uh oh - lights are flickering
-
-
- Now,. if I can just remember where those matches are....
-
- Ted Twietmeyer is the founder of <http://www.data4science.net>www.data4science.net,
which is dedicated to understanding very unusual phenomena. They have updated
their website with new sections of interest to all.
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