Energy Policy Act of 2003 - Continued

ENERGY POLICY ACT OF 2003—CONTINUED

AMENDMENT NO. 876, AS MODIFIED

    Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the time be equally divided and that Senator Feinstein control our time and Senator Cochran control the time on the other side.

    The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?

    Without objection, it is so ordered.

    Who yields time?

    Mr. REID. Madam President, on behalf of Senator Feinstein, I yield to the Senator from Washington 4 minutes.

    The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.

    Ms. CANTWELL. Thank you, Madam President.

    I am here to support the Feinstein amendment, which I am pleased to cosponsor. It is a very important piece of legislation. I thank my colleague for her hard work on this very important issue. We have all heard about the dysfunctions in our western regional power market and how it has cost our western economy more than $35 billion.

    Madam President, it was more than a year ago that the Senator from California and I stood on the floor to have this debate with many of my colleagues. During the Omnibus Appropriations bill in 2000, Congress granted an exemption from regulatory scrutiny for businesses such as EnronOnline and electronic trading platforms. Unsurprisingly, Enron was chief among its boosters in lobbying for this language. Even though Congress listened to Enron and not the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, which opposed this exemption.

    Now we have history. What has happened? We know that the Enron loophole has caused quite a bit of a problem. In fact, in light of evidence which during last year's debate was just beginning to emerge, we have found that the markets for energy derivatives and the physical energy prices and supplies have caused a problem. In the West, we had huge spikes. We have had a long and vigorous floor debate about this amendment.

    There were many detractors who basically said at the time there was no conclusive evidence that Enron manipulated western energy markets and there was no need to proceed. This year, we have heard a lot about how Enron in fact has manipulated markets.

    Less than a month after the Senate passed this comprehensive Energy bill with this language in it, Enron's "smoking gun" memos were released detailing a number of the company's schemes for driving up the prices. My colleagues are aware that Enron has continued to release various amounts of information about this unbelievable scandal and manipulation of prices.

    Just last week, another Enron trader was arrested. And the complaint of Federal prosecutors said they are uncovering even more details of ploys to manipulate energy prices. We wanted evidence. We got it. In a long-awaited report, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded this spring that manipulation was "epidemic" in the western market during the crisis of 2000-2001.

    But more specifically, in a staff report the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission detailed the manner in which EnronOnline helped Enron to game the California markets. The Commission concluded that "the relationship between the financial and physical energy products .    .    . provides the opportunity to manipulate the physical markets and profit in the financial markets."

    Further, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission estimated that EnronOnline allowed the company to reap more than $500 million in additional profits. There it is, right from the Federal Commission: EnronOnline allowed them to reap those additional profits.

    As we approach this very important issue in a vote here in a few minutes, my colleagues need to step up and close this loophole that the President's Working Group on Financial Markets first argued against because it said we didn't have real credibility on manipulation. Now we have the credibility, and we have a Federal Commission pointing to the fact that EnronOnline was responsible for part of this market manipulation.

    I urge my colleagues to support the Feinstein amendment.