The missing link between the power industry and the Bush administration’s “energy policy”—that is, its habit of distorting environmental and other regulatory policies to favor polluting power companies—is, according to the Dallas Morning News, the usual: money. Specifically, campaign contributions, and power industry executives who bundle together many individual contributions into one fat package. This story comes with a scorecard: Power industry executives who are also major Bush donors:

• Dwight Evans, Southern Co.
• Erle Nye, TXU
• Thomas Kuhn, Edison Electric Institute
• Don Jordan, Centerpoint Energy (formerly Reliant)
• Ron Letbetter, Centerpoint Energy
• Jim Rogers, Cintergy
• Anthony Alexander, FirstEnergy Co.
• James Klauser, Wisconsin Energy
• Haley Barbour, ex-industry lobbyist (now Mississippi’s governor)

Bush administration policies that favor the power industry

• Access to the secretive White House energy task force, chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney
• A policy change to expand the loophole that allowed old coal-fired plants to avoid complying with modern anti-pollution regulations
• The Bush campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions: reneged
• Inadequate rules to address mercury emissions

From Wayne Slater,“ Energy Firms Buy Bush Favors, Critics Say,” Dallas Morning News, Aug. 30, 2004