October 11, 2012 11:27AM # Cronyism in the Energy Industry — from Enron to Al Gore By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE Tomorrow, Robert L. Bradley Jr. will discuss “Give Me Regulation: From Samuel Insull to James E. Rogers in the Electric Power Industry” at a [Cato Policy Forum](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9196). The talk draws upon Bradley’s most recent book, *Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies*, the second volume in his trilogy on political capitalism in the energy industry. Maybe he should call it, “From Samuel Insull \[who organized Commonwealth Edison back around 1900\] to Al Gore.” The *Washington Post* [reports today](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/al-gore-has-thrived-as-green-tech-investor/2012/10/10/1dfaa5b0-0b11-11e2-bd1a-b868e65d57eb_story.html?hpid=z3) that former vice president Gore’s “clean energy” companies have received $2.5 billion in taxpayers’ money from the Obama administration. Which is perhaps not unrelated to the fact that “\[j\]ust before leaving public office in 2001, Gore reported assets of less than $2 million; today, his wealth is estimated at $100 million.” I suppose it could be worse—Gore’s companies didn’t get *all* the $90 billion that the Obama administration doled out to uneconomic energy firms. [Attend the forum or watch it online](https://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=9196) at noon Friday. ##### Related Tags [Energy and Environment](https://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).