Rove was helping Enron "fix" the FERC so that it wouldnt interfere with its California price gouging which was the only part of its operation that was producing cash in 2001. That means that Rove would have a personal reason to want to see that Enron's crimes against California and the Administration's involvement in them remain in the business pages.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/business/2002/enron/20.stmMr Rove was one of the biggest holders of Enron stock among White House staffers, with between $100,000 and $250,000 worth of shares when he was appointed. He was required to sell them when the Bush administration took office.
The White House has acknowledged that Mr Rove took part in meetings that helped shape the Bush government’s energy policy, while he still held Enron shares and stock in other energy companies – though the administration denies that the meetings were specific enough to raise conflict-of-interest of interest.
http://sanderhicks.com/articles/enron2.htmlBush's Karl Rove took the advice of Enron's Ken Lay about a prospective appointee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Nora Mead Brownell (also known to her detractors as "Nora Mead Brownout") was appointed by Bush and confirmed by the Senate. A childhood friend of Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, at the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission Brownell had helped Enron enter Pennsylvania's newly deregulated energy markets.
The law was most likely snapped in two. When Rove consulted with Lay over Brownell, Rove owned a significant number of shares of Enron. Normally, a White House official needs to apply for and receive a waiver to clear this kind of conflict of interest. When Congressman Henry Waxman asked why Rove had not sought the proper waiver, the White House curtly replied that Rove was not within the jurisdiction of that law. Representative Waxman didn't buy that. But somehow, our political system lets a non-elected paid campaign official in the White House get away with blatant white collar crime while an elected Congressman, the ranking member of the House Government Reform Committee, can't even get his questions answered.
Before her appointment to the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Brownell had no experience in public utility management. She was a banker. Senior Vice President for Corporate Affairs at Meridian Bancorp in Philadelphia, she did receive high marks for opening up housing loans to minorities. But her first decision in Pennsylvania, on wholesale phone rates, was criticized as "anti-consumer." The opening stanzas of her testimony to the Senate opens with this breathy libertarian posturing: "In the interest of full disclosure, I believe in free markets."
On 25 May 2001, the Senate confirmed Ms. Brownell. Simultaneously that day, in a move that can't be coincidental, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), a leading member of the committee that confirmed Brownell, called for hearings into the possibility of an improper relationship between the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the energy industry. In her Press release, Feinstein cited the day's New York Times report that FERC Chairman Bob Herbert had been contacted by Ken Lay, and offered "support" if he would change his policies to be favorable to Enron. Senator Feinstein noted "FERC is a $175 million a year agency charged with regulating the energy industry, and it would be unconscionable if any of the nation's electricity traders or generators were in a position to be able to determine who chairs or becomes a member of the commission."
Today, Nora Mead Brownell remains a defender of Enron's integrity. To her, Enron's spectacular crash was not the product of deceit or hubris, as many Wall Street analysts find. The government's "regulator" is far more forgiving than even the most bullish critics in the marketplace. To Nora Brownell, Enron's fatal flaw was simply a lack of restraint. She told the Washington Post, "In my mind, it is a classic case of a company growing very fast and not putting in place the financial controls and management depth that was needed." Unregulated markets were not at fault, of course. "In fact, the market has worked pretty efficiently." She dismisses the accusations of criminal fraud and chalks it up to the wild west nature of the "free market." In a forgiving voice, she recently told PBS, "When you don't have a Ten Commandments, it's very hard to have a sinner." Enron should hope to find the Senate so understanding. Does the killing of over 4,500 jobs not prick Brownell's conscience? Does the vaporizing of $70 billion in value not strike her as bad for the pensions and economy of average, hard-working Americans?