The White House has disclosed that there were at least six meetings between Enron and administration officials ahead of the energy plan unveiled by Vice President Dick Cheney last May. And Mr Cheney made efforts to help Enron collect a $64m debt on an energy project in India on a recent state visit.Perhaps more significantly, just about every energy-related decision to come out of the administration has reflected Enron’s priorities: the push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration; the encouragement of mining and logging on public lands; the determination to resist conservation policies; and the unilateral decision to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on curbing global warming. The energy plan echoed Enron’s line on 17 key points, including a favourable assessment of electricity deregulation – a policy that has earned Enron billions of dollars but which has played havoc with consumer markets, notably in California. Even the economic stimulus package now under consideration in Congress, a package supposed to pull the country out of recession and lift the grim post-11 September mood, offers Enron tax breaks and other concessions worth $254m – more than any other company.The scandal would be bad enough if it was just about Enron, but it goes deeper than that, to a whole nexus of political and economic interests which, in common with Mr Bush and to some degree in concert with him, used Texas as a springboard to broaden their influence on the national and international stage. The recent revelations about Enron – the hidden debts and offshore subsidiaries, the years of unpaid taxes and the brutal manner in which employees were barred from selling company stock at the crucial moment of meltdown, leaving their retirement packages virtually worthless – have sucked in at least two other major institutions.The first is Arthur Andersen, the Big Five accounting firm responsible for auditing Enron, which knew of its client’s troubles at least as far back as last February but kept defending Enron’s erroneous financial statements and even took the extraordinary decision to shred hundreds of Enron documents when it became clear the jig was up. Yesterday, David Duncan, the former Andersen partner who has been blamed for the shredding, refused to testify before Congress, citing the Fifth Amendment. Jim Greenwood, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on oversight and investigations, told him: “Enron robbed the bank, Arthur Andersen provided the getaway car, and they say you were at the wheel.”The second, less well known institution is the Houston-based law firm Vinson & Elkins, which did $455 million in legal work for Enron last year and is a familiar player in corporate lobbying circles in Austin, the Texas state capital.

V&E has not been accused of any ethical lapses to date, but it has been shown up for its spectacularly bad judgement. In October it conducted an investigation into Enron’s finances following a warning letter written to Mr Lay by a company vice president, Sharron Watkins, expressing fears that the company was on extremely shaky ground. V&E, who were consulted by Mr Lay against Ms Watkins’ advice, approvingly described Enron’s network of affiliates and secret partnerships as “creative and aggressive”. “No one has reason to believe that it is inappropriate from a technical standpoint,” the V&E report added, neglecting to notice that the creative accounting had kept some $600 million of debt off the company balance sheet (a “false and misleading” practice, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is also investigating).What could prove most damaging to Mr Bush is the fact that all these companies were part of a close-knit corporate culture whose dominance in Houston, Texas’s business capital, went unquestioned for years. Andersen successfully lobbied to lift the ban on audit firms acting as consultants for their clients, and promptly went to work for Enron.

V&E, meanwhile, serviced them both and joined in their various lobbying efforts to lift all kinds of government regulations on business. Crucially, all three companies were massive donors to Mr Bush’s various campaigns. Enron has given more than $500,000 since Mr Bush’s first run at Texas governor in 1994 V&E gave $335,000, and Anderson another $230,000. No fewer than five individuals from the three companies, including Mr Lay and a managing partner from Andersen laid off last week for his role in the document-shredding debacle, were named as “Pioneers” by the 2000 presidential campaign team because they each raised more than $100,000 for the Bush coffers.For a long time, it all seemed so cosy. The lawyers, accountants, corporate lobbyists and political operatives all lived in the same swanky Houston neighbourhoods.