Sunday, Sep 7, 2008
Don't let the federal government torture poor, innocent energy company weasels!
Sep 8, 2003 | They're rare, they're hungry, and they need your help. Who are they? The world's most predatory species, the Bald-faced American Dollar-sucker. That's why we, the EPA, Enronamentalists for the Privatization of America, are coming to the rescue.
Inspired by our nature, we are a group of concerned citizens who have banded together to protect our interests and "pre-serve" the habitat, hopefully on a silver platter. But we need to act now, for the few have been endangered by the many. Just consider these heart-breaking scenes:
Challenges to the corporate ego-structure. Today, a handful of CEOs are living under the constant threat of someday having to do real work, their only means of survival being to launch subsidiaries in offshore tax havens, deduct stock options from corporate tax returns, and lay off thousands of workers -- all for a mere $4 million to $34 million in individual annual raises. To order posters of these adorable endangered raptors, and to help NYSE chairman Richard Grasso supplement his meager $139 million pay package, please send a soy-based paper bag stuffed with 100 percent organic dollar bills to: Owner, Brooklyn Bridge, New York NY.
Hunting for Dick. Until it was neutralized by all-natural poison darts, the General Accounting Office had been ruthlessly stalking the elusive Spotted Cheney. And why? Merely for the sport of finding out whether private energy companies might have influenced the White House's energy policy. The very idea. Fortunately, the Cheney is known for never leaving a trail of crumbs, since all bread is carefully divided among a select few, and the hunters were left without so much as a single dropping to analyze. Aside from the purely coincidental policy support for more oil drilling, coal mining and nuclear reactors, along with such naturally occurring phenomena as deregulation and the wholesale vandalism of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Cruelty to Weasels. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is guilty of torturing cute, puppy-eyed representatives of energy companies. It is bad enough that these beloved creatures may no longer amuse Californians with such playful antics as damming the West's energy supply to increase the flow of consumer currency into their pouches by more than $8 billion dollars. But FERC's cruel methods of bringing these harmless companies to heel are outrageous. (If you have children in the room, please turn down the font size of this article now.)
For example, bloodthirsty FERCers have suggested (Yes, suggested! The viciousness of it!) that Portland General Electric of Oregon cough up more than $12,000 to settle charges filed against them. That's right, twelve THOUSAND dollars. You can still see the gum marks on PGE's balance sheet. Apparently PGE didn't suffer enough in 2002, when the state gouged a whopping TEN BUCKS in corporate taxes out of their tender flesh. Ladies and gentlemen, the bloodlust has got to stop.
The good news? There is still time to save the planet for our own personal use. But to achieve this, we need to do three things: REDUCE power-plant pollution standards, REUSE lands contaminated with PCBs, and RECYCLE lobbyist dollars. And we need to do whatever else the law allows, including changing the laws to allow us to do whatever the hell we want.
That's why we support the president's Wealthy/Poorest Initiative, a common-sense policy that will protect old-growth wealth by allowing industry to thin out the superfluous undergrowth of native flora, fauna and average people. Thanks to an administration that talks vaguely and carries a big subsidy, this initiative should go a long way toward protecting our precious corporate resources.
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