Maybe our American Oil companies should take a cue from Venezuela. They were asked to help others and contribute but they ALL Refused. Billions upon billions of profit made from the hardship of many Americans trying to stay warm or drive to work to make a living...Exxon, Mobil, Shell Should all be Ashamed. ...The following article is reprinted for those that did not see it yet.
In collaboration with Joe Kennedy’s Citizens Energy Corp., Venezuelan-controlled Citgo will provide 120 million gallons of heating oil to more than 235,000 poor American households in 23 states this winter, Citgo President Alejandro Granado promised at a midday press conference. That will cost Citgo more than $100 million.
Nationwide, about 8.1 million American households use about 5.1 billion gallons of heating oil each year, according to the most recent Department of Energy figures. Most of those homes are in the Northeast.
Kennedy, chairman of Citizens Energy, said every other major oil company in the U.S. and every other OPEC country rebuffed Citizens Energy.
“The only country and the only company that responded was the Venezuelans,” he said.
Given Chavez’s fierce anti-American rhetoric, the Citgo program is viewed by some as a public relations stunt.
Kennedy did not shy away from the controversial connection Monday.
“I think our government gets, you know, their little panties in a knot much more than most Americans do about Hugo Chavez,” he told reporters afterward, saying it was possible to get along with the leader of the modern “Bolivarian revolution.”
Thirty-three thousand Bay State households will benefit from the program, according to U.S. Rep. William Delahunt.
“Keep the oil coming. Keep it coming,” Delahunt told a crowd of Citgo workers, media members and Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez.
Because oil prices are up 80 percent in less than a year and fuel-assistance programs have decreased, more poor families will have trouble paying for heating oil this winter, Kennedy said. He said only 16 percent of the eligible families get fuel assistance.
With the price of oil hovering around $100 a barrel, many low-income people have to cut their spending on other essentials in order to keep their homes warm, Kennedy said.
“You are literally keeping people alive through the efforts that you make, and we are deeply, deeply appreciative,” he told Granado.
Ray Walser, the Heritage Foundation’s Latin America senior policy analyst, said the Citgo program is mostly “a publicity gimmick.”
“I don’t think it does any great harm,” Walser said. “It’s simply an effort to garner support to blunt what Chavez says is the negative image he faces here in the U.S.”
In an e-mail, America First National Committee Chairman Jon Hill wrote that if the political benefit to Chavez is a concern, “we should be even more concerned about the elements of our foreign policy which unfortunately give charismatic socialists like Chavez the political ammunition and traction that he needs at home, as well as in his anti-American diplomacy abroad.”
But a number of local residents interviewed yesterday said they cared more about deal’s impact than they did about the geopolitics behind the deal.
One of them, Lawrence Williamson of Weymouth, said: “If it helps the people of this country and Joe can make a deal, why not?”
Families interested in receiving a one-time delivery of 100 gallons of heating oil this winter can call 1-877-JOE-4-OIL or visit www.citizensenergy.com.
Patriot Ledger reporter Don Conkey contributed to this story.
