We all know how money corrupts politics: campaign dollars buy access to powerful elected officials. Out of the access come sweetheart deals uniquely benefitting the contributor, often written by the contributor’s own staff. Sometimes these deals take the form of procurement, such as government contracts for $600 toilet seats or Jesse Jackson outreach grants. Other times, they disrupt markets and create monopolies or near-monopolies. On this week’s McLaughlin Group, the always-humble Dr. connects the dots between Enron contributions to the Clinton campaign and the Kyoto Treaty.
Kyoto uniquely disadvantages the US, aside from what you think about global warming, because it sets pollution ceilings at artificial levels. The UK merely has to stay below the level they were at before they switched from coal to gas for most electricity; Germany has to stay below their level immediately following unification, when much of their electricity was generated by East German coal plants now de-commissioned. But levels for the US penalize us for a relatively cleaner system of generation.
Kyoto would require the US to shut down all of our coal-fired plants and replace them with the only politically correct and practical alternative, natural gas. And guess who was the leader in natural gas-fired electrical plants? Bingo, it was Enron, and evidence suggests they were heavily involved with pushing Clinton and Gore in the Kyoto direction before, during, and after the writing of the treaty.
Kyoto also creates a trans-national system of trading in pollution credits, something Enron was uniquely well-positioned to do. Smoking-gun Company memos touted the benefits that the Kyoto Treaty would bring to Enron
So why fixate on small fry like Paul Krugman when the most massive assault on the American standard of living is staring you right in the face? Wake up, Andrew Sullivan and Virginia Postrel, and smell the money. The Big Money.