[NYTr] Bashing Hugo While Lapping Up His Oil

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Venezuela Information Office (VIO)
http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com

excerpted from VIO Venezuela Daily News Roundup - Dec 12, 2007


[The United Press International reports on Venezuela's heating oil
assistance in the U.S.  Donations of cut-rate oil for poor families in
Massachusetts from Citgo are being distributed through the charity
Citizens Energy.  An Investor's Business Daily article appearing on the
CNN website derides the heating oil assistance program and belittles
the owner of Citizens Energy, Joseph Kennedy, for being associated with
an aid project by President Chavez, whom the paper erroneously labels a
"dictator."  A much bigger error in the piece concers the size of
Venezuela's heating oil assistance in the U.S.: instead of the $25
million mentioned in the article, the oil donated has a market value of
$147 million. -VIO]


United Press International - December 11, 2007
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Briefing/2007/12/11/charity_receives_donation_from_venezuela/9768/

Charity receives donation from Venezuela

BOSTON (UPI) -- A Massachusetts charity run by Joseph P. Kennedy II
received a heating oil donation from Venezuela.

The Boston Globe and other local newspapers reported it was the third
annual donation of heating oil from Venezuelan-owned Citgo Petroleum
Corp., worth about $25 million.

"Our government gets their panties in a knot much more than most
Americans do about Hugo Chavez," Kennedy said.

He is founder of Citizens Energy and received criticism for accepting
the donation but reportedly no other oil company would make a
comparable donation.

"I know there's a lot of controversy about the fact that this oil
ultimately comes from Citgo, from Venezuela and, yes, from Hugo Chavez.
I'll never be in the tank to Hugo Chavez, but I'll tell you I wish we
had a little more leadership in this country that has a concern for the
poor and the disenfranchised as we do in other parts of the world," he
said.

Citgo is a wholly owned subsidiary of PDVSA and will deliver 8.5
million gallons of home heating oil to 33,000 poor Massachusetts
households and 60 homeless shelters, through Citizens Energy's hotline.
The local donation will be part of a 23-state, 112 million-gallon
contribution.

"I believe this is the biggest social program any oil company ever has
done in this country," Citgo chief executive Alejandro Granado said.
"Many people say we are doing politics, but life is politics. We are
helping people. We are going to make sure that less people go to bed
cold this winter."

                                ***

Investor's Business Daily via CNN - December 11, 2007
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-21601559.htm

Hugo's Crude Politics

Politics: Joe Kennedy's back, playing Santa Chavez with a new sleigh
full of Venezuelan heating oil for "the poor." The tropical dictator's
politicized "gift," however, comes with strings. We see Joe dancing on
them.

Kennedy made a loud production of his new $25 million shipment of oil
for the poor, courtesy of the Venezuelan-government-owned Citgo, to be
distributed through his Citizens Energy. Cameras rolling, Kennedy
ostentatiously lumbered into Braintree, Mass., on a tanker with
red-jacketed acolytes all around him.

In the cadence of a docker, Kennedy made no bones about this being
political.

"Our government gets their panties in a knot much more than most
Americans do about Hugo Chavez," Kennedy told the Boston Globe. "I'll
tell you I wish we had a little more leadership in this country that
has a concern for the poor and the disenfranchised as we do in other
parts of the world," he said, adding that he would never be "in the
tank to Hugo Chavez."

But Kennedy's been in the charity oil business for years, and he knows
that Chavista crude isn't the only solution for high oil prices hitting
the poor. Oil can be bought, and he could get the cash just as easily
for his program by hitting up some foundation to buy the oil.

What this is really about is advancing Chavez's U.S. agenda, a big part
of which is to blame U.S. oil companies for high oil prices.

High oil prices do squeeze the poor. But oil companies do not control
them. Dictators such as Chavez do. Eighty percent of the world's oil is
held by inefficient state oil companies. Venezuela is one of the worst,
producing its oil with scab labor since a 2003 strike, and it has also
confiscated at least $1 billion in U.S. oil assets since then. Some
industry analysts estimate that Chavez adds as much as a third of the
cost to world oil prices. No wonder he wants someone else, like Big
Oil, blamed.

Now he's got a willing dupe. Besides browbeating oil companies, Kennedy
also brought in politicians shilling for Chavez as well.

Massachusetts Rep. Bill Delahunt denounced Big Oil's "record profits"
and condemned the companies for not participating in Kennedy's
politically loaded program. This comes on the heels of his refusal to
vote in Congress for more domestic oil or natural gas production, which
could bring down energy costs for all.

Oil companies, in fact, give far more to charity than Kennedy's $25
million program. In 2006, Chevron gave $90.8 million. British Petroleum
(NYSE:BP) gave $106.7 million. Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) gave $138.6
million.

It goes to show that Kennedy's cheap oil program is a plan to really
advance Chavez's influence in this country. What a scam.