Enron, friends have way with American citizens
Posted: Friday, November 14, 2003
SIOUX CITY -- A couple years ago, the energy-producing elite got together with Dick Cheney behind closed doors and crafted a national energy policy that reduced their liabilities and enlarged their subsidies. NO ONE ELSE WAS INVITED. This week the Senate and House will deliver this closed-door wish list (early Christmas gift) to Enron and friends. Excluded from the table were those asking for better fuel economy for our vehicles, those asking for conservation of energy, those wanting us to abide by laws that protected our water, air and land. Look at the overly industrialized North slope of Alaska and picture what these energy companies are going to do to the last pristine wilderness on the continent, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Unless Sens. Grassley and Harkin and our representatives vote against this bill, the American public will find itself at the mercy of corporations not willing to pay the price of a nuclear energy disaster, not willing to protect our groundwater resources as they mine for methane, not willing to reduce America's appetite for oil in a world where war is used to control oil resources.
The energy bill moving out of committee (H.R.6) is a regressive package of subsidies to the energy industry and an affront to consumers and environmental protection.
The bill grants the power of eminent domain to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allowing it to seize private land to construct transmission lines, virtually eliminating local and state authority. -- Dr. Jim Redmond, conservation chair, Northwest Iowa Sierra Club
Unless Sens. Grassley and Harkin and our representatives vote against this bill, the American public will find itself at the mercy of corporations not willing to pay the price of a nuclear energy disaster, not willing to protect our groundwater resources as they mine for methane, not willing to reduce America's appetite for oil in a world where war is used to control oil resources.
The energy bill moving out of committee (H.R.6) is a regressive package of subsidies to the energy industry and an affront to consumers and environmental protection.
The bill grants the power of eminent domain to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission allowing it to seize private land to construct transmission lines, virtually eliminating local and state authority. -- Dr. Jim Redmond, conservation chair, Northwest Iowa Sierra Club
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