El Paso Corp is locked in a make-out session with UT. This Enron-style energy-trading 'n' marketing company has wormed its way into the University with the help of the Regents. As the company flounders financially, UT suffers as well. The intertwining of education and corporation puts the University at risk of contamination, especially when corporate money is contingent on both the fluctuations of the market and the replacement of curriculum with a business agenda. The Regents have a financial stake in El Paso Corporation. Their position of power allows them to manage their own personal gain - political, financial, ideological - with UT's money.

Using UTIMCO, the Regents have historically made El Paso much richer. However, as the company is struggling to avoid bankrupty, UTIMCO has pulled its investments in the company itself; thought it still has investments worth $1,601,017 in El Paso subsidiaries as of June 2003. Regent Riter who sits on the UTIMCO board has 100-500 shares. Woody Hunt - a business bud of El Paso CEO William A. Wise - is Regental Director of UTIMCO. Both are on the Governor's Business Council, and can be seen hobnobbing at Houston's high-society soirees. This conflict of interest has come at a price to the University, underscoring the need for keeping the University's money in responsible hands.

El Paso stocks have not been faring well of late since they are under scrutiny by the SEC. The stock took a nosedive after an El Paso exec - in imitation of Enron's J. Clifford Baxter - committed suicide possibly in anticipation of a scandal. In June, a major stockholder, Oscar Wyatt, accused the company of hiding profits and of understating its exposure to trading liabilities by $2.5 billion. The company's stock dropped after the SEC served subpoenas for documents regarding "round-trip" or "wash" trades of natural gas on July 12th. It dropped again when El Paso was deemed by a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Judge to have participated in price-fixing during California's energy crisis. The Regents favor companies with high-flying marketing schemes and low-flying standards. Unfortunately, their unethical investment practices have lost us all a lot of money this year.

In 2002, Wise was Forbes' 36th best-paid CEO with $22 million compensation for that year. Starting in January 2001, El Paso Corp. has been cutting jobs regularly. They laid off 3,285 workers then, and have followed with lay-offs of hundreds more workers.

Schools for Sale

In 1999, El Paso bought its way into UT by pledging $500,000 over five years, to UT-Austin's Center for Energy Finance Education and Research (CEFER). The Regents and the Enron-mad business school have held the door wide open for El Paso. The CEFER, under the tutelage of its corporate sponsors, teaches the marketing of energy commodities and how to conduct business in a deregulated electricity market. Of course, the business model in this field is defined by Enron and its junior partners El Paso, Dynegy, and Duke - all of which are under investigation by the SEC.

"Strengthening ties between business and academia is critical to the success of both institutions... This program provides unique opportunities for corporate executives to share their expertise with students and for students to gain valuable experience in today's increasingly complex business environment," said Wise in a February 19, 1999 Red McCombs Business School press release. The corporate sponsors of the CEFER are Enron, El Paso, Mirant, Reliant Energy, Conoco, Duke Energy, Cinergy. One can just imagine Ken Lay and Bill Wise taking a new generation of UT business students under their (hopefully clipped) wings and showing them how to fudge the books. El Paso Corp is directly influencing the curriculum at the University through financial "gifts." This is not philanthropy, but rather a shameless method of grooming students into corporate managers. It is much easier for a corporation to make relatively small donations to publicly-funded Universities in order to dictate the content of study than train students on the job.

unWise Move

Bill Wise is also playing venture capitalist with charter schools. He acts as chairman of the Financial Foundation for Texas Charter Schools along with Regent Miller, Enron's Ken Lay, Woody Hunt's non-profit the Cimarron Foundation, Exxon, Shell Oil Co, and others in the same league. On the Governor's Business Council Charter School Task Force, Wise has joined forces with Regents Riter, Hunt, and Miller to encourage the receptive state government to bankroll charter schools at the expense of underfunded public schools. One thing the Task Force has done is create a database that matches donations from Texas corporations with specific needs of charter schools.

In 1998, Wise and Miller had secured $3 million from the Texas business community for charter schools. This illustrates the insidious relationship between education and corporation that Wise & Co. are encouraging, a relationship that conflates corporate agenda with educational need. Suddenly, it seems, Texas capitalists are gung-ho on raising money for schools. It's no coincidence that privatization zealots, Christian fundamentalists, and the wealthy elite are cheerleading for an educational model which gives them control over the kids' minds, bodies, and futures.

El Paso & Bush

El Paso Corp. and its affiliates contributed nearly $1 million to Republican causes and another $560,000 in soft money to Republican candidates during the 1999-2000-campaign cycle. In turn, President Bush helped El Paso out of a sticky situation with Dominican authorities. When El Paso got into a tangle with a Dominican company the Overseas Private Investment Corp. (OPIC) - an Executive Branch agency - sent a threatening letter to the President of the Dominican Republic at El Paso's behest.

The letter stated that the administration was "concerned generally about the type of situation that El Paso is currently experiencing in the Dominican Republic. Accordingly, it is crucial that the current situation with El Paso be resolved prior to OPIC, in substance, proceeding with further Dominican Republic supported investment." In other words, Bush was waving the big stick at Puerto Rico threatening to cut off investments, while he held El Paso's hand. Not coincidentally, El Paso execs had just returned from a lavish May 2002 GOP fundraiser where they had donated $250,000.

Rotten to the Core

In May 2001, sealed court filings obtained by The New York Times revealed that El Paso Corp., like fellow Houston energy companies, Enron, Reliant, and Dynegy, had participated in the fleecing of California energy ratepayers. El Paso and its subsidiaries were named defendants in eleven class action, municipal or individual lawsuits, concerning manipulation of the California energy market.

In recent news, El Paso was found responsible for strategically jacking up prices in 2000 and 2001 in Calfornia.

In August 2000, a pipeline owned and operated by El Paso ruptured a near Carlsbad, New Mexico, killing twelve workers. El Paso is being sued by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Pipeline Safety for $2.5 million for five violations in safety matters. El Paso is also in trouble with both federal and state governments for numerous environmental violations, including the release of PCBs into Kentucky waterways and violation of the Clean Air Act.

Don't expect this to be reported in the El Paso Times since El Paso Corp owns the El Paso, Texas newspaper.