I think this story is interesting because it strips naked the
pretense that the big enviro group -- in this case NRDC and ED -- are
anything more than corporate fronts.
The president of NRDC, Frances Bienecke (The Yalies, Henwood and
Divine, probably know the Bienecke library at Yale) was approached by
leaders of KKR and Texas Pacific and the deal was cut among friends.
NRDC and ED cut the legs out from local Texas environmental groups
-- something they have a long history of doing successfully elsewhere
in the country -- and then did media work to portray this as an
environmental triumph. There's no contract obligating TXU to do
anything -- it is called "an accord" -- but probably the $400 million
promised to foster Energy Efficiency will be spent over the next few
years, administered by TXU of course.
and of course the Private equity players flip these things like a
condo speculator in Miami, so the existing TXU executives will go on
as before after the flip occurs. The NY Time story on Sunday by
Felicity Barringer and another journalist, quite succinct, really
ought to be taught in universities in some discipline. "How the
world really works" or "How things are done by the best people."
Gene Coyle
On Feb 27, 2007, at 7:26 PM, Bill Lear wrote:
On Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 16:53:45 (-0800) raghu writes:
Private equity deals are good for the environment! Who knew?
(What's the catch here? Did these guys just buy a lot of positive
press coverage with no substance? Or is there a long-term strategy
here?)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/
chi-0702270280feb27,0,4125299.column
They wanted 3 power plants, so they said they would build a dozen.
When they got a deal for 3, the greenies cheered.
Bill
