Protecting the corpo- er, common interest

An editorial in the March 7 Seattle Post-Intelligencer says simply and directly that a growing mountain of evidence says"we were scammed" in the West Coast energy crisis engineered by Enron.

Now, even federal energy regulators seem to be taking the indications of massive economic crime seriously.

On Tuesday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released new conversations involving Enron Corp. traders. A FERC economist said the review of nearly 1,500 discussions "may have only scratched the surface" of potential evidence of manipulation.

That is to the good. But this is the part that struck me:

The commission never checked into the tapes until it was forced to turn them over to the Snohomish County Public Utility District.

That is, FERC never even looked at the evidence until it was forced to reveal it. Apparently, even in sight of the obvious criminality - in fact, the gleeful criminality - revealed by the earlier release of conversations, federal regulators were prepared to hide it all under a Bush. Meanwhile,

the commission, the Bush administration and much of the Republican Congress still dream of more energy market deregulation

of exactly the sort that enabled Enron to scam West Coast utilities and consumers in the first place.

So just remember the next time someone praises "the free market," the truth is, we've seen the free market. We know what the free market does. That's exactly why we have regulations. And frankly, not nearly enough of them and not nearly tough enough.