McCain "economic adviser" Phil Gramm wants a return to the ENRON era [View All]

[Truth2Tell]

New stuff from Jason Leopold over at his new site, "http://www.pubrecord.org">The Public Record":

McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
By Jason Leopold
The Public Record

May 19, 2008

Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.

Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.

Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.

Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise ("I don’t know as much about the economy as I should") but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.

More at: http://www.pubrecord.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=8