By Jason Szep
BOSTON, Dec 10 (Reuters) – Standing on the deck of an oil tanker in Massachusetts Bay on Monday, Venezuelan energy officials kicked off the third year of a controversial program of delivering subsidized home-heating oil for the U.S. poor.
A Houston unit of a state-owned company backed by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a foe of the Bush administration, will supply oil at 40 percent below market prices in 23 states, an expansion from 16 states last year.
The donations by Citgo Petroleum Corp, owned by Venezuelan state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela, are worth about $147 million at market prices.
Deliveries began arriving at homes just as a deadly ice storm swept the U.S. Plains and many Americans start to grapple with record heating bills to heat this winter.
“This is the biggest social program any oil company has ever done in this country,” Citgo Petroleum president Alejandro Granado told reporters at a port in Braintree, Massachusetts.
“We didn’t stop and think about politics. We need to share a little bit of our tremendous profits.”
Flush with funds from soaring oil prices, Chavez has used Venezuela’s petroleum wealth to secure closer ties with South American neighbors and in 2005 proposed the U.S. heating oil program to trim costs for America’s poor — a group he says President George W. Bush’s government has neglected.
Chavez, who last year called Bush “the devil” in a speech to the United Nations, has called the heating oil donations “humanitarian aid” although Venezuela’s per capita income is about 1/10th that of the United States.
The conservative editorial page of The Wall Street Journal harshly criticized the program last year for assisting “an anti-American tyrant at the expense of the Venezuelan people”.
But Joseph Kennedy, a former Democratic congressman whose nonprofit Citizens Energy Corp is a major distributor of the heating oil, said the program has nothing to do with politics.
“The politics side of this is absurd,” said Kennedy, the nephew of former president John F. Kennedy.
He noted that more than 10 percent of U.S. gasoline supplies come from Venezuela anyway, along with most of the heating oil and jet fuel in the United States.
“No one is saying any of that should be given up,” Kennedy told Reuters. “The only time this discussion comes up is when we’re talking about discounted heating oil for the poor.”
“The price of oil has gone up 130 or 140 percent in the last four years and there are now hundreds of thousands of low-income folks who need this oil,” he said.
Venezuela, the world’s No. 5 crude exporter, supplies about 15 percent of U.S. oil imports.
The Venezuelan heating oil program comprises 112 million gallons of oil and is intended for 235,000 families drawn from low-income home energy assistance programs in the 23 states.
“To the degree that they have reduced the cost to the elderly and those who cannot afford it, this program is a good thing,” said Sarah Emerson, managing director at Energy Security Analysis in Wakefield, Massachusetts.
The article quotes Joseph Kennedy as saying, “The only time this discussion comes up is when we’re talking about discounted heating oil for the poor.” It is perhaps unsurprising, but I still find it staggering and disturbing to see just how popular it is to vilify (and increasingly to criminalize) attempts to render assistance to the poor. Not content with simply refusing to help the poor, US governmental institutions (from the federal to the local level) and their corporate sponsors seem actively engaged in thwarting other people’s efforts to help the poor. And, for someone who claims that his favorite philosopher is Jesus, it’s amazing just how aggressive W is about making sure that his nation’s poor remain cold and hungry this winter.
well sure, the US capitalist ideology postulates that you are supposed to ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps’ and thus anyone who is poor, supposedly, having failed to do so fully deserves his/her fate. And since the sorry SOB even sometimes lays claim to getting some help from the state (as would be the case in every industrialized state besides the USA), he/she really deserves condemnation. Funny, the USA is, in that respect, very similar to the former Soviet Union in which being unemployed was considered a crime (since, presumably, the state guaranteed jobs).
Blaming the poor, or blaming the victim more generally, is really nothing new. It has been a trademark of the Western culture since at least as early as the so-called ‘enlightenment’…
oldfolio, you cannot seriously believe that Americans (Democrats, Republicans, Independents) like for other Americans to be poor. Please do not impugn the values and character of others you know little about.
Venezuela remains a poor and lightly educated country per capita. Most Venezuelans do not have the skills needed to succeed in the rapidly globalize knowledge age. The Venezuelan education system and retraining of adults leave much to be desired for.
These problems are not all the fault of Chavez. This is the time for all Venezuelans from across the political spectrum to come together and use the temporary surge in oil prices to invest in the human capital and potential of the Venezuelan people (by facilitating them learning the skills they need to be successful and self-reliant.)
Note that I partly agree with the WSJ and other business editorials endorsing Chavez’ reelection, and I fully supported US government attempts general efforts to back Chavez 1998-2002 (and more quietly support his reelection.) I believe that charismatic Chavez has the potential to be a uniter, not a divider. He must realize his potential. All Venezuelans must bury their partisanship and work together to fix Venzuela’s defective education system. This is a far higher priority for Venezuela than spending their transient oil revenues on other countries.
I believe that in the long run, oil prices will move lower as oil becomes increasingly obsolete. Please see comments under:
http://iraqimojo.blogspot.com/2007/12/humans-are-not-causing-climate-change.html
Venezuela’s high oil revenues will not last.
Chavez might consider appointing Thomas Friedman as his principle economic advisor.
Anand, you write, “you cannot seriously believe that Americans like for other Americans to be poor.” I do believe that there are Americans who are actively working to increase the burdens that are suffered by the poor. Let me elaborate the reasons why I believe this.
The report to which I posted a link in my first reply documents the increasing number of laws that make it illegal to provide services to the poor. Moreover, these laws are being enforced with great vigor. In Orlando, police used their limited manpower and resources to stake out charities trying to catch them feeding the hungry. They videotaped one volunteer ladling out soup to the homeless and arrested the volunteer. Fortunately, the jury refused to convict.
A Brennan Center report released in June 2007 documents the systematic mistreatment of low-wage workers. The report found numerous instances
“…where jobs pay less than the minimum wage, and sometimes nothing at all; where employers do not pay overtime for 60-hour weeks, and deny meal breaks that are required by law; where vital health and safety regulations are routinely ignored, even after injuries occur…”
These findings are especially troubling because the report found that such mistreatment “…is not confined to isolated, short-lived cases of exploitation at the fringe…” but is rapidly becoming the norm for conducting business.
US Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) claims that “money equals free speech.” So much for the poor being created equal with respect to their inalienable rights. McConnell also claims, “Outside special interest groups have become the modern-day political parties.” In other words, the US government has become nothing more than a de facto tool of corporate special interests, and politicians seem to prefer having corporate masters over having to be accountable to the American people. Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) defends corporate ownership of the political process by claiming that lobbyists “represent real Americans.” In a sense, she is right. Corporate lobbies do represent the interests of some real Americans. But, I’m at a loss to think of a powerful corporate lobby that is championing the interests of the poor and the homeless.
In the original article posted by VS, Kennedy suggested that people are willing to do business with Chavez–as long as he is not trying to help the poor, that it is his efforts to help the poor that people resent so much. Kennedy’s suggestion struck me as being consistent with the trends I’ve mentioned above in which governments and businesses are becoming more and more harsh in their treatment of the poor.
I don’t understand. I don’t know the Americans you are talking about. I haven’t met them.
Most free market people believe that when other people become more productive (by advancing global knowledge and technology), society as a whole benefits. People capture only a part of the value they create.
Poor people becoming rich is something capitalist salivate over. Capitalists want everyone to be rich. The rest of us benefit by being able to do business with the new rich people who use to be poor.
At least that is how I think. Doesn’t everyone think this way?
Are you referring to a backlash against minorities in this country? If so, then you must understand that the backlash isn’t against poor minorities, but against affluent, increasingly educated and successful ones who represent an increasing share of America’s success, and income, power and influence. Some people are fearful that minorities are becoming too successful and are taking over. For example most successful technology start-ups in America are by minorities and immigrants. Look at Wall Street. The top corridors of power seem to be increasingly dominated by minorities and immigrants. Look at industry after industry and you will see the same pattern. This, in my view, is the real cause of the minority backlash . . . not poor minorities.
In the real world people sympathize with the poor and want them to succeed, because it benefits not just the poor person but everyone around the poor person. The resentment that you are describing is against the minorities who Americans increasingly refer to as “boss.”
I thought that you were leveling a jab at successful minorities by accusing them of not being real Americans earlier (and alleging that minorities now control America—as if that were a bad thing.) Maybe I was mistaken.
Chavez was backed by Wall Street, Corporate America, and Wall Street Journal Editorials for reelection precisely because they thought Chavez might lead to stability and prosperity for most Venezuelans. Prosperity for most Venezuelans and poverty reduction is good for business. That is how Corporate America and Wall Street think.