NYT: power failures caused by enron/bush policies....

[diamond14]

and you can expect MORE OF THE SAME, as long as bush* and his minions are running OUR government....BTW, why isn't kenny-boy in prison????

-snips-

The problem of preventing such power failures has been that, for the most part, no one has an incentive to invest billions of dollars in new wires, new towers and new transformers, which are often opposed by residential neighbors. The old utilities have sold off their power plants but still hold a highly regulated monopoly on the network of lines, and they would only invest in new transmission if state regulators would guarantee them rate increases to pay for it.

That is the last thing the regulators, who deregulated much of the industry in hopes of lowering rates, would be willing to do.

After deregulation in the late 1990's, there was a burst of interest from many power companies in building new plants, but the collapse of Enron and the markets it had pioneered dried up much of the capital for such investments, and the recession curbed demand slightly.

During the California blackouts of 2001, several members of Congress proposed spending $350 million to improve the nation's transmission system, but the measure was opposed by the Bush administration and was voted down by Congressional Republicans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/15/nyregion/15GRID.html?hp

[Cush]

1. excellent

Good to see the story about Bush blocking funds is getting out.

[gratuitous]

Well, the Times had better change their tune pronto!

Questioning the leadership of our Dear Leader, sired by the Glorious Leader, annointed by God and appointed by the Supreme Court, is actionable under the USA PATRIOT Act, so cut it out!

I'm sure this is a momentary aberration on the Times part, brought on by reality crashing into Republican-generated fantasy in the form of last night's blackout. They'll be back to their delusional cheerleading for the Repukes in a day or so.

Or maybe . . . the lights going out caused a couple of other light bulbs to flicker on? We can but hope.

[glitch]

2. nice article - too bad the juicy bit is 25 paragraphs down. nt

[kentuck]

3. And we're not talking about billions of dollars...

Congress proposed spending much less than $1 billion dollars to upgrade the transmission lines and the Bush Admin and Repubs voted it down. It will not cost a lot of money to fix this problem.

[diamond14]

6. $ one Billion a week for Iraq, $ one billion a month for Afganistan

that's the bush* expenditures, while Americans go without power....

[Rose Siding]

7. AND wouldn't every penny of it

(that didn't end up in an exec comp pkg) end up right back in the American economy, to the benefit of *everyone*?

I won't hold my breath for the media to connect this DOT with the CA issue. That would cut into Up To The Minute Arnold Time.

[SummerGrace]

8. Is this a set up?

To accomplish is the eastern US what they (the corporate energy companies) couldn't get in CA?
******************************
Among other publicly aggressive efforts to shore up Enron, Cheney threatened that states might have land seized under eminent domain to provide right of ways for power grids (sought by Enron.) Secretary O'Neill (who on February 7th sobbed under withering questioning by Senator Robert Byrd, and bizarrely claimed he was born into a ditch) fought tougher offshore banking regulations (which would have limited Enron's offshore corporate scams). The Secretary of the Army, the former head of one of Enron's "troubled" divisions, was urging the privatization of utilities for the army, with you-know-who as the likely contract recipient. Dick Cheney tried to assist Enron in getting out of a jam involving an India power station. Cheney and the White House stridently adopted Enron's position that no price caps be imposed during California's energy crisis. Well, the list goes on and on.
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/2002/02/020802_Bush_Beds_Enron.html

[JHB]

4. Time to juxtapose that with...

..."I've always said..."

[Cocoa]

5. the whores won't go there

I predict that the whores will minimize the political angle, since it appears that the political angle looks bad for Bush.

I think they'll focus on the human interest part. They'll pat the masses on the heads for not rioting, they'll point to this as proof that the great unwashed is content under Bush, and when the dems try to make this a political issue they'll say "Oh, silly, this is not a Washington story, it's a New York story, just like Enron."

[Bandit]

9. Which NE governors are Democrats that Bush* will set about to recall?

I guess Patacki is safe for now but which ones will be held accountable for the Bush* crimes. You have to give these guys credit. They go for the gusto and the American people as a whole are so stupid that they let them get away with it. It is so blatant too. I just shake my head in wonder.