Those of us left in sweltering darkness Thursday and Friday have a Bush crony to thank.
ABC News says the massive blackaout began in a power transmission line in suburban Cleveland. What should have been a local problem spread so far because the Ohio power company that owned the line failed to separate itself from the grid.
The Ohio power company failed to separate from the national electric grid, as it was supposed to and as Michigan did. Thus the cascade of problems was sent on to New York."The system is designed to isolate itself to protect that area, to have the area go down and have the rest of the system survive. And instead it spread further and longer than it should have," said Michehl R. Gent, president and CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Council.
A spokesman for the Ohio power company, FirstEnergy Corp., said it had followed all proper procedures but would not comment specifically on whether it had triggered the huge blackout by failing to separate.
"If they had separated you might have seen a region in Ohio area that would have been without power, but you would not have seen it in almost a national scale, as we did," Divan [Deepak Divan, CEO of Softswitching Technologies] said. [ Brian Ross, "Where It All Began, ABC News, August 15, 2003]
First Energy is the nation's 10th-largest investor-owned electric utility. It owns fossil and nuclear power plants and also produces and sells oil and gas.
The President of First Energy, Tony Alexander, is a Bush "Pioneer," meaning he raised more than $100,000 in individual contributions for the 2000 Bush presidential campaign. Alexander was also a major player in the Bush Energy Transition Team, according to the National Resources Defense Council.
Much of the $100,000 was "donated" by First Energy employees.
When Republican presidential front-runner George W. Bush visited Akron Aug. 20, his campaign coffers swelled with the proceeds from a well-publicized $1,000-a-plate luncheon attended by more than 300 prominent GOP supporters.But three weeks earlier, the same hotel hosted a private gathering of corporate executives also interested in financing the Texas governor's White House bid.
The earlier event at the Hilton Akron/Fairlawn wasn't billed as a fund-raiser. All the same, it poured tens of thousands into the Bush campaign -- vividly demonstrating how a major corporation can flex its political muscle despite laws aimed at curbing the power of big business to affect elections.
The occasion was the annual two-day conference of high-level managers of FirstEnergy Corp., the Akron-based utility giant that provides electricity for homes and businesses across northern Ohio and into western Pennsylvania.
Amid the usual business of business, about 170 executives, directors, supervisors, managers and spouses heard a hard sales pitch for donations for Bush.
There was nothing illegal about that. While corporations are barred by law from donating a dime to a presidential candidate, nothing stops them from asking their employees to give.
And give they did.
In the following days, 111 employees and spouses of FirstEnergy and corporate subsidiaries came through to the tune of $69,600 -- nearly 7 percent of all contributions made by Ohioans to Bush in the critical first six months of his campaign. [David Knox, "Utility Employees Brighten Bush's Coffers," The Akron Beacon Journal, October 10, 1999]
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, First Energy contributed $852,915 in the 2000 election cycle, 72 percent of which went to Republicans. The company gave $1,044,807 in the 2002 election cycle, 70 percent of which went to Republicans.
Was Alexander or another First Energy executive on Dick Cheney's infamous Energy Task Force? Since the Vice President refuses to release the names of the task force members, even after subpoenaed by Congress, who knows?
The Usual Suspects
Just a week before the blackout began, First Energy was found guilty of violating the Clean Air Act.
U.S. Judge Edmund Sargus in Columbus, Ohio ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Clinton administration that accused FirstEnergy's Ohio Edison Co. of violating the Clean Air Act by classifying the projects as maintenance instead of new construction.Sargus said he would hold a trial in March to determine the civil penalties that FirstEnergy must pay.
U.S. utilities have been fighting the Environmental Protection Agency for years over what constitutes routine maintenance to power plants built before 1970. Congress assumed that most of the aging plants would be gradually replaced with new ones and exempted pre-1970 plants from stricter pollution controls, unless they launch a major renovation or expansion.
The Bush administration has been criticized by green groups for failing to aggressively prosecute pollution violations by utilities under the so-called "new source review" law. [ Julie Vorman, "First Energy Plant Violated Clear Air Act - Judge," Reuters, August 8, 2003]
So let's see -- a power company facing a Clinton Administration lawsuit gives big bucks to the Republicans and ends up playing a role in the new administration's transition team. And, possibly, this company helped write government policy on energy, although we can't know that for sure because the Vice President is protecting the names of GOP donors on his task force. In other words, business as usual for the Bushies.
