Western Governors update

Jim et al---Paul and I have a meeting in Denver on Tuesday with Governor Bill
Owen's chief of staff (Roy Palmer) and two of his policy guys. The Governor
is expected to stop in for a few minutes. I also had the occasion to talk
with Gov Owens this weekend in Washington DC, and I he articulated his
support for "market" solutions. He also will be an individual that we can
count on to know the issues....he apparently was a lobbyist at one time for
the oil and gas industry. Also, Gov Owens mentioned that he had breakfast
with Ken Lay sometime in the last few months and that he had received support
from Ken in the past. Can we find out what support Owens was given? (I got
the sense that it might have been some money dedicated to a community or
government program...maybe the Aspen Institute? And it sounded like he had
gotten some $ for his campaign)

Unfortunately, Gov Owens will be leaving for an overseas trip this week and
will not be attending the Feb 2 meeting in Portland, so our hope that he
would be a stong voice at the meeting is not going to happen. I think that
we can get some good work done with the staff, and good support in the long
term, but we need to look beyond Owens for this meeting.

I got the sense over the weekend that Kempthorne is going to be pretty active
on this issue, and since he is the chair of the WGA, he will be running the
meeting. In talking with FERC Commissioner Hebert at one of the inaugural
events, he indicated that Kempthorne seemed to be pretty reluctant to take on
the mantle of market solutions. Paul has a meeing with Kempthorne's office
on Friday of this week, so we'll be working on convincing him to be an
advocate.

As you know, Jim Souby from WGA did eventually make room on the panel for the
FEB 2 meeting for us. A letter of invitation should be on it's way to Steve
Kean if it has not already been received.

I saw Hap Boyd and he says that Enron Wind is participating on Feb. 2 in the
afternoon session.