This PUD's for you

Today marks the start of the trial of former Enron executives Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, which is hopefully the end of a shameful period in the energy industry. One of the reasons we know just how shameful it was is thanks to the tiny Snohomish Public Utility District (PUD) in Washington State. Faced with charges for non-payment of $122 million in hyper-inflated spot market power, this utility fought its case before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission by doing what the government should have done itself, had it not been so busy peddling the falsehood that regulation caused the California Energy Crisis: going through hour after hour of Enron phone tapes, looking for malfeasance.

What they found was shocking in frankness, if not effect. When Clinton Administration Energy Secretary Bill Richardson signed an order requiring out-of-state power plants sell surplus energy to California, an Enron trader named Bill told a Nevada plant official to shut it down by any means necessary:

Bill: Ah, we want you guys to get a little creative.
Rich: OK.
Bill: And come up with a reason to go down.
Rich: OK
Bill: Anything you want to do over there? Any -
Rich: Ah-
Bill: Cleaning, anything like that?
Rich: Yeah, Yeah. There's some stuff we could be doing.

Sure enough, the plant went down for repairs and Enron kept selling on the spot market at an inflated price. Other conversations show how traders mask energy sources, congest uncongested power lines to collect extra fees and screw over the now-famous "Grandma Millie":

Person 1: “…all the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers of California?”
Person 2: “Yeah, Grandma Millie, man. But she’s the one who couldn’t figure out how to [expletive deleted] vote on the butterfly ballot.”

Lovely. No wonder this stuff has been found to be too prejudicial to use in the Lay and Skilling trial.

As far as I can tell via LexisNexis, there hasn't been any action on the $122 million Enron claims Snohomish owes it. That's a lot of potential debt to have hanging over your head, so if you're a current or former Snohomish PUD employee or customer, I'll buy you a beer if you can find me today.