“This agreement will be good for Enron stock!!”

– John Palmisano, “Implications of the Climate Change Agreement in Kyoto & What Transpired” (1997)

The 219–212 passage of HR 2454 inspires another look at Enron’s infamous “Kyoto memo,” written almost 13 years ago by company lobbyist John Palmisano. Indeed, an Enron memo upon House passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill would have been similar! Change the dates and some other specifics and the bottom line would be the same–potential gains for Enron’s profit centers in wind, solar, CO2-emissions trading, energy outsourcing, and natural gas.

One can imagine a quotation like this from Enron’s fabled public relations department, hyperbolizing a half-victory into something bigger in the attempt to create a bandwagon effect:

“This historic vote was heard ’round the world,” stated Kenneth L. 

“The current debate has proven one thing very clearly. The U.S. climate debate is not about saving the climate. It is about regulation for its own sake in the name of “saving the climate.” This fact should give pause to everyone who really cares about human welfare. Cap-and-trade is at odds with the economic wealth needed to adapt to a future that cannot be centrally planned by politicos.”

– “Cap-and-Trade and the Temple of Enron,” MasterResource

Saturday’s New York Times headline (print edition) read: “House Backs Bill, 219-212, to Curb Global Warming.” But if the 219 House members who voted for the American Clean Energy and Security Act (HR 2454, aka the Waxman-Markey climate bill) thought they were casting a vote to “curb global warming,” they were sadly mistaken.

As I have shown, the climate impact of U.S.…

The battle cry of Joseph Romm at Climate Progress (Center for American Progress) earlier this year was “Obama Can Get a Better Climate Bill in 2010: Here’s How.” But now Romm is in panic mode, trying to convince the rebelling Environmental Left that the out-of-control Waxman-Markey climate change bill (now 1,090 1,201 pages) is the last best hope to save civilization. As Romm stated in a post yesterday:

Waxman-Markey is the only game in town.  If it fails, I see no chance whatsoever of stabilizing anywhere near 350 to 450 ppm since serious U.S. action would certainly be off the table for years, the effort to jumpstart the clean energy economy in this country would stall, the international negotiating process would fall apart, and any chance of a deal with China would be dead.

[Editor note: Ken Maize, a long-time energy analyst, joins MasterResource for the first time (see his bio at the end of this post). A MR previous post by Robert Michaels has questioned ‘smart metering,’ part of the ‘smart grid’ concept]

However politically incorrect my conclusion, I’m convinced that the “smart grid” is not smart and even dumb. It diverts attention from what is a more important objective–a strong grid. And it politicizes in the very area where we need more consumer-driven, free-market incentives.

Following the Northeast grid collapse of 2003, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) popped out the smart grid concept, largely the brainchild of then EPRI’s CEO Kurt Yeager. The blueprint was for an interconnected intelligent network reaching from the generating station to your toaster, able to talk up-and-down the line, matching supply and demand seamlessly.…