“Since 1976, Enron [and predecessor company] employees have been at the forefront of developing air credit trading policies for governments and businesses…. Enron today is the largest and most sophisticated air emissions credit and allowance trading organization in the United States. Since 1990, Enron has participated in over 80 SOx allowance transactions and has also been active in establishing policies for trading NOx in the United States and carbon [dioxide] world-wide.”

– “Enron Corp.’s Participation in Air Trading,” Enron Capital & Trade Resources, November 4, 1996 (copy in files).

“If implemented, [the Kyoto Protocol] will do more to promote Enron’s business than will almost any other regulatory initiative…. The endorsement of [CO₂] emissions trading was another victory for us…. This agreement will be good for Enron stock!”

– John Palmisano (December 12, 1997) from Kyoto, Japan.

[Editor note: For an in-depth look at Enron’s political capitalism model applied to the climate-change debate, see Bradley’s Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy (M & M Scrivener Press, 2009)] 

On four occasions,  Joseph Romm at Climate Progress (Center for American Progress) has deployed an argument ad hominem against me, using my prior employment at Enron and my direct association with Ken Lay (see here, here,  here, and here). My response to Romm earlier this week has received thousands of views and several blog links, including here.

The irony here is two-fold. First, Romm ignores the fact that I was an employee who personally challenged the company’s rent-seeking via climate alarmism. Secondly, and more ironic still, Enron was his darling company. Specifically, he was an unpaid consultant and collaborator with Enron Energy Services (EES), whose contracts were money losers, reflecting of paucity of economic energy savings.…

[Editor note: Also see “Joseph Romm and Enron: More for the Record” (May 8, 2009) and “Enron and Waxman-Markey: Response to Joe Romm” (July 2, 2009)]

The headline at Climate Progress, the blog site of Joseph Romm, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, read:

MYSTERIOUS INDUSTRY FRONT-GROUP AFFILIATED WITH KEN LAY’S FORMER SPEECHWRITER LAUNCHES ANTI-WAXMAN-MARKEY ADS WITH PHONY MIT COST FIGURE

And here is what Romm specifically says about me:

Who is the [American Energy Alliance]?  Good question.  The AEA says on its website:

“AEA is an independent affiliate of the Institute for Energy Research (IER)….”Aside from the cryptic nature of the oxymoronic phrase “independent affiliate,” it is worth noting that the Institute for Energy Research “has received $307,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.”

“Today, 1.6 billion people in developing countries do not have access to electricity in their homes. Most of the electricity-deprived are in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. For these people, the day finishes much earlier than in richer countries for lack of proper lighting. They struggle to read by candle light. They lack refrigeration for keeping food and medicines fresh. Those appliances that they do have are powered by batteries, which eat up a large share of their incomes.”

– Faith Birol, “Energy Economics: A Place for Energy Poverty in the Agenda?” The Energy Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3 (2007), 1–6, at 3.

Chris Flavin, head of the Worldwatch Institute, has written prolifically (albeit often erroneously) on energy and the environment. Ken Lay, the architect of Enron’s “sustainable energy” vision, was a Flavin fan, keeping this study in his “Desk.”…