[van-discuss] Hydro sell off, Accenture, Calpine, and a whole host of vultures

[ernie yacub]

This is an excellent analysis of the whole privatization scheme - note 
references to water, highways, etc.  Rember the California energy scams?  
They are coming our way.

ernie

From: "Sandy Heslop" <sandyh at telus.net 
Subject: Fw: hydro rates to jump 30-60% with American take-over 
Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 17:58:02 -0700

". . .when market prices are in effect, residential consumers of electricity 
will need to pay $84/Mwh or 30 per cent more than the $65/Mwh they pay 
today." Industrial rates are expected to jump by 60 per cent. ...Do you 
realize that once this deal is done NAFTA kicks in and it will be illegal for 
BC citizens to recieve preferrential energy rates over, say, California? ... 
I've been corresponding with the San Francisco Assistant Attorney. Here's her 
message for you, British Columbia: "You just cannot afford to deregulate your 
electrical utilities."

I URGE ALL OF YOU......please take the time to read this, understand what is 
happening, print it off and get it out to as many as you can! This is 
extremely important if we are to stop the sell off our most precious 
resource! I am upset and angry......where is everyone??

Yours June

Sent: Thursday, July 04, 2002 5:38 PM Subject: Re: B.C. HYDRO PRIVATIZATION

Hi folks,

I'm going to make this as brief and succinct as I possibly can (to leave you 
enough time to explore the hyperlinks) but bear with me because this is a 
complex story, and, may I say, one of the most important facing British 
Columbians today. If you care about the future of this province, please read 
on.

Take time to click the links in this text -- remembering that when you launch 
from this e-mail you'll need to retrieve it from your lower taskbar and 
clicking subsequent links will require re-launching your browser from the 
same bar.

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So, to the point . . . I've recieved the forwarded e-mail (see the end of 
this thread) several times over the last week, which is a good thing. I'm 
glad to see the message it contains finally spreading through the mainstream.

The struggle to alert British Columbians to this dangerous agenda has been a 
long haul. For myself it has consumed the last 6 months of my life (donations 
gratefully accepted ;-] ). The compliant corporate press will not join the 
dots to tell the whole story.

You may be aware that Nanaimo is the proposed site of a gas fired power plant 
-- VIGP. The Nanaimo Citizens Organizing Committee, like the Port Alberni 
volunteer group who defeated the last attempt in their town, have waged a 
valiant battle to stop this abomination. They are up against a greater threat 
here: a city council ideologically on board and the zoning at Duke Point is 
in place.

Here's the deal: BC Hydro partnered with two American companies -- Calpine 
Power Holdings and Williams Cos. -- to build the plant. They claim the plants 
(one already built at Campbell River, others planned) are needed to meet 
increased energy demand. Present subsea cables that Hydro claim are at the 
end of their useful life, will be decommissioned.

Williams and Calpine were at the absolute centre of the California 
deregulation storm. They calmly walked away with a fortune while California 
consumers remortgaged their homes and filed for bankrupcy in response to 
electricity rates that jumped, in some cases, up to 3500%! -- no I didn't hit 
the wrong keys.

BC Hydro won't say why Calpine pulled out of the VIGP deal recently, but I'd 
like to think it was due in part to my relentless campaign to uncover their 
past record. In California, during the worst of the "crisis" of 2000, 
Calpine's profits soared 240%, Williams' by 276%. Williams is still the 
pipeline (GSX) part of the plan, but their stock price is in freefall and 
analysts are betting they'll soon pull out, as well.

Calpine earned 23% of total revenue from Enron first 2/3 of last year and 
shared Enron's accountant/consultant, the infamous Arthur Andersen.

We now know that the California crisis was cynically manufactured by the 
companies who jumped in to take over California's utilities upon deregulation 
in 1996. The recently uncovered Enron memos (pdf) have confirmed as much -- 
and those memos implicated Powerex in price-gouging Californians. Powerex is 
the marketing arm of -- you guessed it -- BC Hydro.

As for the e-mail that is circulating, I can't comment on "insider" rumours 
from Hydro's executive office, but I can give you latest reliable news on the 
privatization front.

The plan is to split Hydro into several seperate units, which will be 
deregulated and sold off. I can't go into exhausting detail here. I suggest 
you refer to resources like the Citizens for public Power Website and 
download the excellent reports there. Be sure you have the (free) Acrobat 
reader for pdf files installed.

The first stage of BC Hydro deregulation and privatization is well under way. 
Again, I can't comment on the e-mail that's circulating and I think the 
Columbia River dam story is a red herring, but here's what I know to be fact: 
The first parts of our public utility to be put on the block are Customer 
Services, Westech Information Systems Inc., and Fleet Services.

The only corporation in the running is the American firm Accenture. They 
are/were the consulting arm of ARTHUR ANDERSEN that split off under a new 
name in January as the Enron scandal erupted. The Accenture/Hydro contract 
was supposed to see ink at the end of May. As the dealmakers' appetite grew, 
so did the scope of the aquisition and finalization was pushed to the end of 
June. My source told me this morning that the handshake has now been pushed 
to the end of July.

Accenture has just partnered with a division of Halliburton, the oil & gas 
infrastructure behemoth formerly headed by US Vice-prez Dick Cheney (who 
cooked up the present insane -- though perfectly brilliant -- US energy 
policy scam with Enron head criminal Ken Lay). Halliburton (in cahoots with 
Arthur Andersen, again!) is now the subject of an SEC fraud investigation and 
their stock price has plunged to a new low of $8.

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Let's also look at how this fraud unfolded in England during the 1980-90's. 
As Maggie Thatcher's energy minister, Lord Wakeham oversaw the deregulation 
of Britain's energy utilities. He approved Enron's Teeside power station. He 
then went on to numerous energy industry boards, including the audit 
committee at Enron! note: he was head weasel in Enron's foray into water 
privatization as boardmember of a bank advising on the takeover of Wessex 
Water.

(Note that Gordon Campbell told Vancouver Sun's editorial board (I think it 
was) a week or so ago that BC'rs can't expect water to be free. Don't say he 
[and I] didn't warn you!)

Which brings us to BC Hydro boss Larry Bell. Also chair of B.C. Hydro from 
1987 to 1991, you'll remember he handed BC Gas to the private sector during 
the Social Credit administration. The BC Gas buzzard (that aquired Vancouver 
Island's Centra) is now circling over part of Hydro's 
soon-to-be-deregulated-distribution system. Bell was key advisor to the B.C. 
Liberal Party's transition team

See how this stuff works?

What's in store? Well, I encourage everyone to read the government's own task 
force's interim report -- a pdf file. Keep in mind that the final report was 
submitted in March, but the government has been sitting on it and won't 
release it until the fall. It is rumoured to be even more ludicrous than the 
prelim. If you don't want to wade through the 89 pages, here's the quote you 
need: ". . .when market prices are in effect, residential consumers of 
electricity will need to pay $84/Mwh or 30 per cent more than the $65/Mwh 
they pay today." Industrial rates are expected to jump by 60 per cent. This, 
of course, doesn't take into consideration what effect volatile fossil fuel 
markets (or craven manipulation of them) will do after BC's energy future has 
been hijacked by the hydrocarbon industry. And don't get me started on the 
effect global warming (which these maniacs deny) will have on my 
grandchilderen's lives.

The industry relationships are complex to follow for those lacking an 
obsessive-compulsive desire for transparency. But, that's OK, I'm not on 
Prozac yet. Consider this: In what was described by Alaskan industry watchers 
as the "first US raid on Canadian pipeline infrastructure" Houston-based Duke 
energy gobbled up Vancouver's Westcoast Energy this spring for $8.5 billion. 
Westcoast was behind the Campbell River plant. Duke is one of the companies 
now cited in the massive lawsuits unfolding in California courts. They 
charged California providers $3800 a megawat hour, in one case, and 
deliberately shut down generators to cause brownouts. Californians want their 
money back. These pirates are in deep *%@&!. Where are they gonna get their 
loot next? I've been corresponding with the San Francisco Assistant Attorney. 
Here's her message for you, British Columbia: "You just cannot afford to 
deregulate your electrical utilities."

The MO of the privatization mobsters is speed and stealth -- that and a 
fanatical devotion to Sir Roger Douglas. One only has to read the Liberal 
Party bible -- Douglas's Unfinished Business -- to understand the agenda. The 
neoLiberals have appointed Erik Westergaard to their privatization squad, who 
played a key role in the disasterous (though, again, a bonanza for the energy 
pirates) deregulation of New Zealand energy utilities in the Sir jolly 
Roger-era free market free-for-all.

(note: When I told a Kiwi anti-water privatization campaigner at a water 
conference last year that our government were Douglas cultists, she answered: 
"Oh dear, you're getting Rogered, are you?")

Our best defense against this international criminal conspiracy is to bring 
people to their door shine a light into their den.

You can help in this daunting task by sharing this with all your 
correspondents and telling this story over your back fence and at summer 
barbecues.

But, ultimately, talk without action, as they say, = 0. I have my doubts that 
Gordon Campbell knows about, or gives a toss about an online petition. It is 
imperative to see that neoliberal (market fundamentalist) ideology is akin to 
a death cult. The bond among thieves is thicker than blood because if one 
goes down hard, they know they all do.

We are seeing the pox at the centre of neoliberalism is nowspreading through 
the ranks very quickly, from Enron to WorldCom to Martha Stewart. And that's 
a good thing. . . unless you're a stockholder.

All British Columbians are stockholders in BC Hydro. We all paid into it and 
have reaped untold benefits as its stakeholders. There are Orwellian code 
words you should be familiar with, such as P3's (public private partnerships) 
which translated means: You give me the house that you spent your life paying 
for so I can speculate on it on the open market while you rent it from us (at 
"market" value) -- oh, and by the way. . . you take care of maintenance.The 
simple agenda here is this: The international criminal mobsters extorting the 
commons are determined to get their hands into the wallets of BC consumers. 
BC Hydro presently makes them look bad with its low energy prices (can you 
image how pissed this makes Ralph Kline with his "Alberta Advantage?") Hydro 
bosses have already had a taste of the deregulation windfall with its foray 
into California.

We have the chance to bring these Mafioso down while they are off balance. 
But we don't have long. Do you realize that once this deal is done NAFTA 
kicks in and it will be illegal for BC citizens to recieve preferrential 
energy rates over, say, California?

How will you and your family defend your property against these renegades? 
You can resist this fraud by exercising your most important right, the right 
to speak out. Write letters to and/or phone Campbell and his energy minister 
Richard Neufeld directly. Let them know you're on to their game and are 
watching their every move. I'm not sure signing an online petition will do 
much. Here's the action page from Citizens for Public Power, a better 
resource.

If you have the time, you could march down to your local MLA's office and. . 
. well I'll leave that up to your own creativity.

I've barely skimmed the scum off the surface of this cesspool, (please make 
use of the hypertext links) but, in conclusion, BC Hydro propagandists and 
the Liberal government are using exactly the same MO as in other 
jurisdictions -- threatening brownouts, and promising market magic -- to 
wrest a priceless public asset from its owners, the people of BC. The forces 
behind this are predominantly fossil fuel industry mobsters and their hired 
"government" functionaries. As in the Bush/Cheney theft of the US elections, 
energy companies made sure they elected their friends with (a declared) 
$290,970 since 1996 to Liberal coffers. Top donors include Centra Gas Inc. at 
$50,000, BC Gas at $37,837 and Pancanadian Petroleum at $27,000. Westcoast 
ponied up $27,500.

If you want to be kept up to date on this issue. . . or don't, respond via 
e-mail.

In solidarity, Raymond

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ALL ON YOUR LISTS AND IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK WHO LOVE 
THIS PROVINCE.

http://members.shaw.ca/NCOC/home.html

http://www.sqwalk.com/home.htm

http://www.handsoffhydro.com/

http://www.citizensforpublicpower.ca/index.html