Enron Corp.'s close ties with the Bush administration have prompted a call for Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Pat Wood to resign because of the alleged influence the failed energy trading company had over his appointment.
Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell said on Saturday he had urged Wood to quit as the commission begins an investigation into whether Enron manipulated energy markets last year to raise electricity prices under long-term power supply contracts with California.
"Sadly, the integrity of the commission has been irreversibly compromised due to the circumstances surrounding your appointment and the FERC's intimate relationship with Enron, and as such I urge you to resign as chairman," the New Jersey lawmaker said in a letter to Wood on Friday.
A spokesman for the energy commission declined to comment.
The FERC, which regulates interstate electricity and natural gas rates, has made 139 regulatory decisions concerning Enron since 1995 -- 18 of those since President Bush took office in January 2001.
Pascrell said congressional hearings into Enron, as well as an investigation by the General Accounting Office, had shed light on the integral role the bankrupt energy giant had in creating the current FERC panel of commissioners.
Former Enron Chief Executive Kenneth Lay had sent the White House a list of potential FERC nominees that included Wood and Nora Brownell, who was also subsequently appointed to the agency, Pascrell said.
"In light of the influence that Kenneth Lay ... had over both your appointment to the FERC and your subsequent chairmanship of the commission, it is apparent that your ability to fairly and neutrally oversee the country's energy policies has been irrevocably comprised," Pascrell said in the letter to Wood.
"You were Kenneth Lay's choice to replace Curtis Hebert, who had recently been appointed (FERC) chairman by President Bush but later refused to promote Enron Corporation's agenda through the FERC."
Hebert resigned shortly after Wood joined the commission, and Wood took over as chairman.
Ironically, Hebert opposed caps on skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices in California last year -- a position that Enron supported -- while Wood and Brownell went against the company and voted for the FERC to curb rising power costs in western states.
"It is clear that the relationship between the FERC and Enron is unacceptably intertwined to serve the public's interest," Pascrell said.
Enron's interest in Wood goes back to December 1994, when Lay wrote Bush, then Texas governor-elect, and recommended Wood be appointed to the Texas Public Utility Commission.
Lay wrote Bush that Wood was "best qualified" to provide "new thinking" at the utility commission that was needed to open the state's energy market to competition, a policy change Enron sought to bring in more business.
Three weeks after he was sworn in as governor, Bush named Wood in February 1995 to the Texas utility commission, which went on to deregulate the state's energy market.
(China Daily February 10, 2002)
