Note: On this day in 2001, the politically correct, all-things-to-all-people Enron entered the workweek in bankruptcy. Monday December 2nd was my last day at the company after a 16-year career there, as it was for several thousand other employees.
Enron, a unique story of corporate strategy and governance gone wrong, has been misinterpreted by the Progressive mainstream. The company represented the failure of political capitalism, not market capitalism. Its lessons extend to image environmentalism and renewable energy hyperbole, as I document in my book series on the company, as well as in shorter articles.
Reprinted below for the historical record is an email from John Jennrich, founding editor of Natural Gas Week, to Enron author John Emshwiller and myself. Jennrich discusses Enron’s role in the development of the modern natural gas market.…
“The U.S. Energy Information Administration has come a long way in the quality of its analysis since Glenn, independent of any organization other than his own, launched critiques of the federal agency. I wouldn’t say that Glenn alone changed the EIA, but everyone knew there was an aggressive watchdog keeping a close eye on EIA’s work.”
To say that Glenn Schleede was opposed to taxpayer-funded renewables projects — especially wind power — is akin to saying the Washington Monument is a building.
Both statements are true, but both vastly understate reality.
Glenn, who died on May 7 at 83, was an energy analyst, federal official and utility executive — and a virtual vacuum cleaner for collecting data and policy analysis.
Over the past two decades, he was particularly outspoken about his dislike for wind power and taxpayer subsidies for what he considered to be an uneconomic technology.…