May 1, 1997

Electric Avenues

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Electric Avenues

Deregulating utilities would only increase his power.

by Rachel Burstein

#53 Kenneth and Linda Lay, Houston, Texas. Party: Both. $224,400 total contributions.

View the Lays’ itemized contributions.

Kenneth Lay Kenneth Lay wants to light up your life. The head of Enron Corp., America’s largest seller of natural gas and electricity to utility companies, Lay hopes his company will become the “AT&T for the electricity business.” He’s lobbied Congress to let him sell directly to consumers.

Rep. Dan Schaefer (R-Colo.) has introduced a helpful bit of deregulatory legislation that Lay hopes will net $30 billion in new business for his company alone. “We’re in communication with Enron all the time,” says Schaefer’s press secretary, Dana Perino.

Lay has testified that consumers could save $80 billion annually under deregulation. But environmentalists argue that unbridled competition could worsen pollution as providers turn to cheaper fuels such as coal. Constancy of service is another concern.

“It’s not like deregulating your cable company,” says Adrienne Mitchem of the Consumers Union. “If you lose electricity, it can mean life or death.”

Photo Credit: Dan Holmes

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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