[Mb-civic] Big Oil Fan after Little Man

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Published on Thursday, February 23, 2006 by the New York Daily 
News
Big Oil Fan after Little Man
by Juan Gonzalez
 
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0223-21.htm

Rep. Joe Barton, the powerful Texas Republican who is chairman of 
the House Energy and Commerce Committee, launched a bizarre 
investigation last week into possible antitrust violations by a major oil 
company.

You will be surprised to learn that Barton, one of the top recipients in 
Congress of campaign donations from the energy industry, is not 
probing whether ExxonMobil or Chevron or any of the other oil giants 
engaged in price gouging when gasoline and heating oil costs 
skyrocketed the past few years.

No, the good congressman has set his sights on the only oil company 
that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest 
Americans.

In a Feb. 15 letter to Citgo, the Houston-based company owned by the 
Venezuelan government, Barton demanded that company officials 
produce by tomorrow all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk 
calendars related to Citgo's novel program of supplying discounted 
heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.

The Citgo program, which kicked off late last year in Massachusetts 
and the South Bronx, provides oil at discounts as high as 60% off 
market price.

Since its inception the program has expanded to low-income 
communities in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Maine and Rhode 
Island. Local politicians, desperate for ways to reduce energy costs for 
their constituents, have welcomed it with open arms.

Here in New York, Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel will soon 
announce an expansion of the Citgo program into upper Manhattan.

All of this unexpected corporate philanthropy has made Barton and 
other House Republicans furious. Citgo's oil-for-the-poor program, 
after all, was the brainchild of Hugo Chavez, the fiery populist 
president of Venezuela who has become one of the most strident 
opponents of the Bush administration.

"The bellicose Venezuelan decided to meddle in American energy 
policy, and we think it might prove instructive to know how," Larry Neal, 
deputy staff director for Barton's committee, said yesterday.

Barton's letter lists a bunch of questions he wants Citgo to answer, 
including "how and why were the particular beneficiaries of this 
program selected" and whether the program "runs afoul of any U.S. 
laws, including but not limited to, antitrust laws."

Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, is flabbergasted by 
Barton's investigation.

"The Republicans are on another planet when it comes to energy 
policy," Markey said.

Instead of doing something about skyrocketing oil prices, Markey said, 
the Republicans are probing "a charitable donation of heating oil to 
relieve the suffering of a few thousand American families."

Barton, however, is not as nutty as he sounds.

He is well aware that Citgo's limited discount program will have no 
influence on American energy policy. But it has created a huge public 
embarrassment for Barton's friends in the major oil companies, all of 
which recently announced record-shattering profits for 2005.

ExxonMobil, for example, reported $36 billion in earnings last year. 
That's the largest profit ever recorded by any company in the history of 
modern commerce. It works out to an average of $98 million in profit 
for every day of last year.

Oil profits have gotten so obscene that a lot of Americans are getting 
fed up, and pressure is mounting on Congress to do something.

That's where Barton comes in. He's the closest thing on Capitol Hill to 
a mouthpiece for Big Oil.

During the last election cycle, he was second only to fellow Texan Tom 
DeLay in the amount of oil industry contributions. During two decades 
in the House, Barton has raked in nearly $2 million in campaign 
donations from oil and electric companies.

He is such a rabid defender of the energy industry that when a group 
of scientists issued a damning study last year about the growing 
danger of global warming, Barton immediately launched one of his 
shotgun investigations. He fired off letters to each of the scientists and 
demanded that they list all the sources of their funding and provide him 
with their research data and notes.

Now Barton is after Citgo, the oil company that dared to do the 
unthinkable - lower oil prices for poor Americans.

Earth to Barton, call home.

Juan Gonzalez is a Daily News columnist. Email: jgonzalez@ 
edit.nydailynews.com

© 2006 Daily News, L.P.


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