On January 30, 2002, the San Francisco Chronicle released a memo given by former Enron Chairman Ken Lay to Vice President Cheney when the two met on April 17, 2001, to discuss energy policy. This fact sheet compares the energy policies laid out in the memo that Mr. Lay urged the administration to adopt with the energy policies that the White House incorporated in its national energy plan.

The analysis below describes Enron’s positions outlined in Mr. Lay’s memo. Contrary to the White House claim, the White House energy plan incorporates the vast majority of Mr. Lay’s policy recommendations. These include recommendations to increase federal control over transmission lines, to exercise federal eminent domain authority to override state decisions on siting of transmission lines, to reject price controls on electricity as a way to mitigate the California energy crisis, and to speed permitting of new energy facilities.

Enron’s memo contains recommendations in eight areas. In total, the White House energy plan adopts all or significant portions of Enron’s recommendations in seven of these eight areas. The only one of these eight Enron policy priorities that is not reflected in the energy plan is the recommendation that the Administration establish a demand reduction program to allow large electricity consumers to sell avoided electricity use. Last year, however, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) testified that the Commission is favorably considering this recommendation.