Frontlines

Utilities have little to show for the millions they pay in campaign contributions.

If Donald Trump could call Congress on the carpet, he would send lawmakers packing with those two now infamous words, "You're fired!"

Trump, at the conclusion of each episode of his reality TV show "The Apprentice," dumps an unlucky job candidate for failing to complete that show's business assignment to his liking.

Now think of how many times Congress has failed to pass an energy bill without incident. You certainly couldn't fit into a 15-episode reality show the number of times politicians said they'd deliver. No, if energy legislation served as TV drama, the show would stretch out over a 12-year mini-series. The only hit Congress had was way back in 1992 (the Energy Policy Act).

I may be in a nursing home before any substantive energy policy gets done on the Hill. And I think Trump would agree that, from a business perspective, the financial incentives and the will to pass an energy bill should be there.

In his show, 16 candidates go through the most grueling tasks in a cut-throat business environment, in hopes of being hired to a $250,000 job at the Trump organization. But politicians in 2003 and 2004 alone received millions from the electric utilities industry.