This report was published in July 2000. It should be considered outdated and is kept online for historical purposes only.

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Pioneer Profiles: George W. Bush's $100,000 Club
 
Name: Kenneth Lay
Occupation: Chair & CEO, Enron Corp.
Industry: Energy & Natural Resources
Home: Houston, Texas
1999 Salary & Perks: $42.4 Million

Political Contributions:
Bush Gubernatorial Races: 
 $122,500
Republican Hard Money: 
$145,850
Republican Soft Money: 
$250,000
Democratic Hard Money: 
$39,000
Democratic Soft Money: 
$0
Federal PAC Hard Money:
$17,200
Total Contributions:
 $574,550
Soft Money from Employer:
$1,953,350
to Republicans:
$1,501,000
to Democrats:
$452,350
The $550,025 that the Enron Corp. gave Bush over the years makes it his No. 1 career patron, according to the Center for Public Integrity. “Virtually every … aspect of Enron’s operations is overseen by the federal government,” a ’96 Dallas Morning News story noted. Not surprisingly, this global natural gas giant and its top executive are big political contributors who keep revolving doors whirling. Lay hired President Bush’s cabinet members James Baker and Robert Mosbacher as they left office. After President Bush’s ’93 Gulf War victory tour of Kuwait, Baker and other members of his entourage stayed on to hustle Enron contracts. The Clinton administration also threatened to cut Mozambique’s aid in ’95 if the world’s poorest country awarded a pipeline contract to a different company. Enron got Bush to contact Texas’ congressional delegation in ’97 to promote a corporate welfare program in which U.S. taxpayers finance political risk insurance for the foreign operations of corporations such as Enron. Enron plants around Houston—which surpassed LA for the title to the nation’s worst air—are “grandfathered” air polluters that exploit a loophole in state law to avoid installing modern pollution-control technologies. Earlier this year the Houston Astros inaugurated their new Enron Field, which was financed with $180 million in public tax dollars and $100 million from Enron. In return, Enron landed tax breaks and a $200 million contract to power the stadium. Topping Enron’s political wish list in Texas was deregulation of the state’s electrical markets. Bush signed this dream into law in ’99.


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