Thursday, July 5, 2012

Fun With Enron Emails II (ENE, JPM)

Hot on the heels of JPM's shenanigans (FT: JPMorgan in US Power Probe) FT Alphaville's The Closer post directed us to a data visualization of one day's emails (Dec. 26, 2000; 11 months before the bankruptcy) between various Enron executives.

Those boys were a chatty bunch.

Back in 2009 we posted "Fun With Enron Emails" (I):
... Anyhoo, I was at Trampoline's Enron email database and remembered some of the finds that other people had unearthed:
RE: Lunch
From:
randy.g.kruger.jr@us.andersen.com
To:
Sent:
09/01/2002 at 16:49

Email metadata


The message

This week is not good. I have too large a pile of documents to shred.
Next week is better. I suggest Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
To: dgiron@enron.com, Randy G. Kruger Jr.@ANDERSEN WO,
mikeshaw@andrews-kurth.com, todd.w.taylor@bakernet.com
cc:
Date: 01/09/2002 10:26 AM
From: SSCHROED@us.ca-indosuez.com
Subject: Lunch
OK you slackers (excluding Shaw), I'll give you another chance to respond.
Lunch this week or next, let me know what's good. If meeting after work is
better for you, let me know. Certainly all of you can stop shredding
documents for 5 minutes to respond.
Schroeder
*******************Internet Email Confidentiality Footer*******************
The database is just wonderful that way. Unfortunately it does not contain the most interesting (among the cognoscenti) Enron email, which John Palmisano infamously wrote from Kyoto:

If implemented [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring of the [electricity] and natural gas industries in Europe and the United States…. The endorsement of emissions trading was another victory for us…. This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!
It was time to turn deeds into dollars, he added:
Enron now has excellent credentials with many ‘green’ interests including Greenpeace, WWF [World Wildlife Fund], NRDC [Natural Resources Defense Council], GermanWatch, The US Climate Action Network, the European Climate Action Network, Ozone Action, WRI [World Resources Institute], and Worldwatch [Institute],” reported Palmisano. “This position should be increasingly cultivated and capitalized on (monetized).
Good times, good times at the Crooked E.

If you're interested 2008's "California's cap-and-trade won't work" has some links:
Here at Climateer Investing the comparison between California electricity deregulation and carbon trading seemed self-evident, based, if for no other reason, on the fact that the pals and alumni of Enron are the ones pushing the trade. Now the media is picking up on where the trade part of cap-and-trade is going. The LA Times gets it....
Blackout: Enron and the California Power Crisis (Transcript)...

...And scariest of all, here's a meeting on cap-and-trade where the man from Enron is the smartest guy in the room:


That leads me to one of my favorite links in the vault, the transcript of a March 3, 2000 (21 months to the really big bankruptcy filing) roundtable discussion "Domestic Emissions Trading of Greenhouse Gas Credits". Batting lead-off, the Senator from GE's home state, Joltin' Joe Lieberman. More interestingly though (sorry, Joe it's true), batting cleanup, the Enron representative really does come across as "The Smartest Guy in the Room" (that ENE link is kinda funny, in a morbid sort of way)
  • II. Opening Remarks

  • Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT)

  • III. Presentations by Panelists

  • Dan Lashof, Natural Resources Defense Council

  • Joe Goffman, Environmental Defense

  • John Palmisano, Enron Corporation

  • Jon Naimon, Light Green Advisors

  • Ray Kopp, Resources for the Future

  • Sue Gander, Center for Clean Air Policy
  • Good times.