Maria Cantwell: “these articles show what consumers in my State have thought all along, that these prices were being manipulated. That is…”

“these articles show what consumers in my State have thought all along, that these prices were being manipulated. That is why in January of this year I asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to investigate these high prices that have literally cost people jobs, made consumers pay as much as 60-percent rate increases, and have made it tough for our economy in Washington State to continue to thrive with these high energy prices in some industries such as aluminum and other intensive energy businesses. Yet what has happened--I do not know if other people in the country realize this--is our consumers may end up paying these high rates for many years, even though Enron has gone bankrupt. The reason is that the contracts these companies have had with Enron are as many as 5-year to 7-year--in some cases 8-year--contracts which were negotiated at the time of this crisis and very high prices. In fact, energy prices--the rates were as much as 1,000 times higher during this crisis. Consumers hear there were memos with names such as Fat Boy or Death Star or Get Shorty or Ricochet that were really plans by this company to manipulate prices. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should act upon these memos and basically find that these rates have, in fact, been manipulated.”