To the SEC
Enforcement@sec.gov
November 19, 2003
Re: Cover up of Enron facts while repealing the Public Utility Holding Company Act
On behalf of the Alliance for Democracy, and in conjunction with Common Cause/Ohio, I have been litigating a matter for
over three years during which the respondents, the US and Ohio Chambers of Commerce, to an Ohio Elections Commission
complaint have engaged in extraordinarily evasive measures so as to avoid the most basic discovery as to who was involved
in the election violations involving a corporate funded attack on the Ohio Supreme Court. This continues today and, I
anticipate will go on for some time.
I have been following similar machinations in Texas, by the Texas Association of Business, over a corporate funded attack
on the Texas House of Representatives, where the inquiry is criminal in nature, but nevertheless the evasion as to who was
involved seems to be without limit.
These matters follow the refusal of Vice President of the United States Richard Cheney to disclose basic information as to
who was involved in the development of his energy plan for the Administration.
There is evidence that in all three jurisdictions Enron was involved. That, given the well known corruption that Enron
stands for, is probably reason enough to resist disclosure, even to the extremes of public organizations and public
officials appearing to be scofflaws. Furthermore, Enron's exemption from the act, and the harm to the public that would
have been prevented had it not been exempted, itself proves the current relevance and need to preserve the act.
The urgent push to pass an energy bill which would repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the mainstay of the
nation's energy policy for 68 years, that rescued our nation's public utility system from thieves and con artists of the
same ilk as Enron, led me to realize that this may be the reason underlying these fanatical cover-ups. The PUHCA was
enacted after many months of investigations which brought to light a wide variety of abuse, manipulation and corruption.
Yet, now, in the face of similar abuses, which have not been fully investigated or disclosed, Congress is being asked to
repeal this law and SEC enforcement on someone's promise that this deregulation will serve the public interest. Is the
California energy debacle a model for the nation to follow?
The cover up is denying the public the facts that would clearly prove the relevance and need of PUHCA to protect our
nation's energy system from corporations which seek its repeal in order to engage in the very monopolistic and corrupt
practices that would evade alternative regulatory mechanisms.
Therefore, as a citizen and officer of the court of the state of Ohio, I request that the SEC conduct an investigation into
these three matters from the standpoint of determining the extent of involvement of Enron and any Public Utility Holding
Companies in violation of the lobbying and political contributions provisions of the act. The investigation should also
seek to identify corporations which have violated criminal laws and failed to disclose such violations--a fraud upon their
investors under the Securities Act of 1933.
Concurrently herewith, I am asking the U.S. Senate to defer its consideration of repeal of the act, proposed in Subtitle F,
Sections 1261-1277, until full investigations are conducted and all relevant facts are publicly disclosed. To proceed with
repeal, while the public is in the dark about these basic facts would, in my view, constitute a massive fraud upon the
people of the United States, and upon its Congress.
Respectfully submitted,
(S)
Clifford O. Arnebeck, Jr.
Attorney-at-law
