From:
John McCain's Connection to Big Oil & The Enron Loophole -- Keith Olbermann, June 18, 2008
Text of Video, (continued from
June 18, 2008):
3:17
British Petroleum paid $303 milion to settle charges it cornered the propane market in 2004, inflating heating costs for 7 million American homes.
3:26
Two years ago, a Republican Senate report recognized what speculators have done, and blamed the Enron Loophole.
3:34
Two weeks ago, the Senate Commerce Committee heard testimony about the Enron Loophole's effect on the price of a barrel of oil.
3:41
Michael Greenberger (Fmr. CFTC Dir. of Trading & Markets), June 3 Sen Hearing on Energy Market Manipulation:
"The speculators are not just betting on these futures markets, they're saying 'Gosh, if I can CONTROL the price of heating oil, I'm going to go out and BUY heating oil.' So you have Morgan Stanley is the biggest heating oil owner in New England."
3:55
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-MN (June 3, 2008):
"The idea is to put the word "Energy" back in, so that we can actually go back to where we were before this -- what Dr. Cooper calls the foolish, but affectionately called "Enron" -- loophole got put into the law?"
(Anticipated effect of closing the Enron loophole)
4:06
Greenberger:
"Yes. Overnight that will bring down the price of crude oil to get at least a 25% drop in the cost of oil and a corresponding drop in the cost of gasoline...some people estimate 50%."
4:17
Mark Cooper (Consumer Federation of America):
"The speculative bubble in petroleum markets has cost the average American household about $1500 in increased gasoline, natural gas and electricity expenditures in the two years SINCE the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations first called attention to the problem. The Senate knew about this problem two years ago."
4:37
John McCain seemed to understand this problem even earlier. In 2002 and 2003 he voted with the minority to close the Enron loophole.
4:47
"We're all tainted," by Enron's money, he said. "Enron made a sound investment in Washington. It did them a lot of good. Where they really do well is around the edges, the insertion of an amendment (--the Enron loophole--) into an appropriations bill." (New Yorker, Feb 2002)
5:00
But for most of THIS (2008) campaign McCain has offered explanations OTHER than the influence of speculators and remedies OTHER than regulation:
5:09
"We can develop alternative energy sources." (McCain, June 9, 2008)
5:14
Will alternative energy fix things, without closing the Enron Loophole?
5:16
Michael Greenberger (Fmr. CFTC Dir. of Trading & Markets):
"And what's going to happen when you get all this new, clean energy, is the banks are going to go into those markets and rob those guys blind, like they're robbing the gas station owners and heating oil dealers in this country right now."
5:30
What about McCain's idea to stop filling America's strategic reserve?
5:34
George Soros (Chrmn, Soros Fund Management):
"These institutions, acting as a herd, are accumulating much larger...setting aside much larger reserves than the strategic reserve is. It's a multiple."
5:50
John McCain doesn't talk about the Enron Loophole any more. One McCain advisor reportedly said he no longer even has a position on it. And when the bipartisan farm bill SHUT the Enron Loophole last month (2008), John McCain OPPOSED the farm bill, citing its spending levels.
6:06
What changed?
(Energy loopholes, Phil Gramm and John McCain)
6:08
Since 2006 John
McCain's top economic advisor has been former TX Senator
Phil Gramm, husband of the former CFTC head who then joined
Enron. (see pt I)
- McCain shared Gramm's 1996 Presidential race with Ken Lay as regional chairman.
- It was Gramm who passed the Enron Loophole, partialy written by Enron itself, with no hearings, with no debate.
- It was Gramm who stopped Democrats from closing the Enron Loophole.
- And it was Gramm who became Vice-Chariman at the Swiss financial firm, UBS, in 2002, less than a year after UBS bought the shattered remains of... Enron's energy trading arm.
6:48
Federal lobbying forms reviewed by Countdown show that Gramm lobbied Congress about Commodity Trading Rules in 2006, and that his company -- specifically, his former aide, John Savercool, now a UBS lobbyist -- lobbied the Senate as recently as last year AGAINST 'The Close the Enron Loophole Act' (without actually calling it that).
McCain's finance co-chair, Wayne Berman, lobbied just last year for Chevron and for the American Petroleum Institute AGAINST the Price Gouging Prevention Act. And this year, the lobbying firm for which Berman serves as Managing Director was hired by the New York Mercantile Exchange to lobby AGAINST the 'Close the Enron Loophole Act'.
In fact, McCain's top campaign advisor, controversial lobbyist Charlie Black, was paid 140K by JP Morgan back in 2000 for the SOLE PURPOSE of lobbying Congress to pass the Commodities Modernization Act, the same act that contained the ENRON LOOPHOLE.
7:48
McCain skipped this month's hearing on gas prices. But this week, after committee member Maria Cantwell pushed the Bush Administration to investigate, McCain finally changed his tune — in public:
"We must reform the laws and regulations governing the oil futures market."
Senator John McCain, however,
...still has not mentioned the Enron Loophole
...still has Gramm
...and Berman
...and Black
...heading his campaign...writing his economic policy.
And when Senator Cantwell, sent a letter asking the CFTC to cut off a NEW LOOPHOLE that lets US speculators channel trades UNREGULATED through London and Dubai, John McCain declined to sign it.
8:35
Senator Obama, as well, has an advisor who has lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute. Obama reportedly OPPOSED the Enron Loophole and VOTED FOR that Farm Bill that contained a closure of it.
In an email today, the McCain campaign did not address our reporting on his advisors, but pointed instead to his 2003 vote against the Enron Loophole, and said, "Senator McCain's opposition to the farm bill had absolutely nothing to do with this issue, but rather the billions in pork-barrel projects and subsidies in the bill that are sure to do more harm than good for most farmers, consumers and taxpayers."
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