It makes sense that many Americans, if given the option, would choose an energy economy that is less expensive and more environmentally friendly than our current profligate use of oil. So, if we could do things differently, and have faith that people would be open to change, then what’s the issue?
Democracy is the issue. The simple fact is that the oil industry is one of the wealthiest, most powerful entities on our planet. And when the voices of Exxon, BP, Shell, Unocal, and Chevron speak in unison, they usually get what they want.
Some evidence is probably in order for such a bold statement. Here are a few examples:
• In 1996, BP was caught supplying equipment to the Colombian military, as well as photos and videotapes of Colombian citizens who dared to protest BP’s activities in their community. Many of these activists were subsequently “disappeared� (i.e., made to disappear; kidnapped and/or killed) by the Colombian military for being “subversives.� BP is also linked to war crimes in Sudan as a result of its investments in the China National Petroleum Company.
• Oil giant Chevron has been sued for its links to the torture and murder of Nigerian citizens by government forces there. Chevron-leased boats and helicopters have accompanied Nigerian military forces while they torched villages and killed innocent civilians—including children.
• California, in an effort to protect its drinking water, banned MTBE, a gasoline additive. Again citing unfair barriers to trade, the Methanex Corporation filed a US$970 million lawsuit against the state under the trade rules established by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
• In 2002, President Bush, at the urging of ExxonMobil, removed Dr. Robert Watson from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC). Under Dr. Watson’s leadership, the IPCC had pointed strongly to rising evidence of climate change.
• Finally, Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to release the full notes from his private meetings with executives of numerous energy companies during the drafting of the Bush Administration’s energy policy. Even without these notes however, there appear to be quite strong correlations between his policy and the desires of the industry executives he met with. Cheney seemed to take it as unavoidable, for instance, that US oil consumption will continue to climb and that oil imports will rise from 50% now to approximately 66% by 2020. Where in this process was the public or environmental organizations consulted? The National Resources Defense Council found that the ratio of industry consultants vs. nonindustry representatives from Cheney’s energy policy meetings to be 25 to 1.
These examples just scratch the surface of government-oil industry collusion that is in direct conflict with public well being. And
yet these examples help us understand why our nation, and our nation’s energy policy, look the way they do; put simply, the people are not at the helm of the ship, the oil industry is. This realization, if ever doubted, has become crystal clear with the ascendancy of George W. Bush to the Presidency.
It is hard to imagine a group of men and women more well-suited to advancing the interests of the oil industry than those who currently occupy our nation’s highest positions of power. Currently over 40 members of the Bush regime have close ties to the oil industry. A quick glance at some of the line-up:
• President George W. Bush, former director of Harken Energy (energy services). Received more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry in the 2000 election. Twenty-eight individuals representing the private energy and natural resources sector pledged to raise over $100,000 apiece for the Bush/Cheney ticket—clearly a statement of trust in the ability of these two men to deliver.
• Vice President Cheney, former leader of the American Petroleum Institute (an oil industry trade association); also former CEO of Halliburton (energy services).
• Condoleezza Rice, former director of Chevron Corporation; also a consultant on Central Asia and served as Chevron’s principal expert on Kazakhstan. Appointed National Security Advisor.
• Gale Norton, former legal representative for Delta Petroleum (part of the Unocal consortium) and head of Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates (co-funded by BP Amoco). Appointed Secretary of the Interior.
• Zalmay Khalilzad, former Unocal Corporation oil industry consultant. Appointed to Bush’s National Security Council and later as US special envoy to Afghanistan, where Unocal had tried to cut a deal with the Taliban for a gas pipeline across Afghan territory. Appointed as special Bush official for Iraq in months leading up to Gulf War II.
• Hamid Karzai, former top adviser to Unocal, also helped Unocal negotiate with the Taliban to construct the Central Asia Gas pipeline. Appointed head of the new US-backed government in Afghanistan.
From his plans to increase oil exploration of the Alaskan arctic to his inaction on climate change, his poor performance in supporting alternative transportation and renewable energy to his weak requirements for increased fuel efficiency in automobiles, the Bush administration has been a dream come true for the oil industry and an absolute nightmare for the health and well being of our nation and world.
Jason Fults is coordinator of SEAC’s Militarism & the Environment project.
Get involved! The Student Environmental Action Coalition’s Environmental Peace Campaign:
www.seac.org/militarism
antimilitarism@seac.org 215-222-4711
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