Jay Inslee: “Not only did they do nothing, this House today did nothing while our consumers are still continuing to pay these…”

“Not only did they do nothing, this House today did nothing while our consumers are still continuing to pay these outrageous electrical rates in Snohomish County, Washington, 52 percent today, still higher. This is the long, dark shadow of Enron that today we refused to do anything about. I want to go through just a moment of history of how this administration has and has not acted and why this ends up with rates being so high. It is interesting when President Bush was running for office in October 2000, when he was in San Diego and the prices were just starting to maybe go up, he said, 'I believe so strongly that part of this region is going to suffer unless you have a President who is willing to tell FERC to do what is right for the consumer.' So when he was campaigning, he said he was going to make sure FERC did right by the consumers. He then took the oath of office in January 2001 and the next thing we heard was from Lawrence Lindsey, his assistant in the White House who said, 'They should expect no more help from the White House.' Message from George Bush to the West Coast: Go fish. Let them eat cake. As a result, Enron had the green light from the President of the United States to go embezzle, cheat, gouge as much as they could from the West Coast and, by gum, Enron got the message.”