"'We view this asset as becoming the crown jewel of our domestic operations,' said Occidental Oil and Gas C.E.O. David Hentschel.
Gore's "Environmentalism" is a Perfect Cover for his "Teapot Dome" Oil Deals
Al Gore's Old and Deep Family and Financial Ties to Occidental Petoleum
By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources (www.originalsources.com)
September 26, 2000
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In 1922, Secretary of the Interior, Albert B.Fall leased the entire Teapot Dome Reserve for twenty years to his friend, Harry F. Sinclair, head of the Sinclair Oil Coporation with no competitive bidding. It was later proved that Fall had accepted a bribe for the transfer of naval oil reserves to privates interests and he was sent to prison. In fact, Teapot Dome became the legacy for Warren Harding's administration.
In an eerie re-enactment of Teapot Dome, Al Gore, endorsed the sale of the OTHER Naval Oil Reserve, at Elk Hills which is located near Bakersfield, California. President Clinton proposed sale of the Navy's Petroleum Reserve in 1995 saying the oil field was no longer needed for emergency fuelling of America's ships.
Savage notes:
"The DOE (Energy Department) received a total of 22 bona fide offers but decided to sell this "crown jewel" of oil and gas fields to Occidental Petroleum Corp."
"'We view this asset as becoming the crown jewel of our domestic operations,' said Occidental Oil and Gas C.E.O. David Hentschel.
"Couching this questionable attack on our National Security in conservative jargon, Patricia Godley, DOE's Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy, claimed the sale was part of Al Gore's efforts to ' the size of government' and 'return inherently non-federal functions to the private sector.' The largest federal divestiture was also said to help 'pay off the national debt.'"
This statement came from the very same Clinton-Gore administration which declared 1.7 million acres in Utah, consisting of the largest supply of environmentally friendly coal needed for the production of electricity in coal-fired generation plants, a "monument" that could not be mined - EVER!
However, there seems to be an incredibly cozy relationship between Al Gore and Occidental Petroleum, according to Charles Lewis from the Center of Public Integrity and author of The Buying of the President 2000 (http://www.public-i.org/story_01_011100.htm) He wrote about that relationship noting:
"(Washington, Jan. 11) On Sept. 7, 1995, Vice President Albert Gore Jr., stood on the White House lawn and talked in sweeping terms about ending the era of big government. He touted a list of recommendations formulated by the National Performance Review, an initiative Gore directed that he claimed streamlined the federal bureaucracy, cut unnecessary waste and helped make the government "work better and cost less." Gore said that his report, delivered to President Clinton that day, would continue the drive to "reinvent government."
"Gore did not mention that his recommendations to the president included a plan to give oil companies access to thousands of acres of oil-rich, publicly owned land that the U.S. Navy has held as emergency reserves since 1912. Ever since the federal government earmarked the reserves for military emergencies, the oil industry had tried and failed to pry them away from the Navy.
�"Despite the history of the naval petroleum reserves, despite the royalty revenues that the field continued to generate, Gore recommended that the government put Elk Hills on the auction block. Clinton took Gore's advice and approved a deal to let oil companies buy some of the reserves. The White House then pushed to have language authorizing the sales inserted in the 1996 defense authorization bill, which Congress ultimately approved. Oil companies bid on the field and, finally, on Oct. 6, 1997, the Energy Department announced that the government would sell its interest in the 47,000-acre Elk Hills reserve to Occidental Petroleum Corp. for $3.65 billion. It was the largest privatization of federal property in U.S. history, one that tripled Occidental's U.S. oil reserves overnight. During the months after the sale, Occidental tripled the amount of natural gas extracted from the field.
"Although the Energy Department was required to assess the likely environmental consequences of the proposed sale, it didn't. Instead it hired a private company, ICF Kaiser International, Inc., to complete the assessment. The general chairman of Gore's presidential campaign, Tony Coelho, sat on the board of directors.
"Just hours after the announcement of the Elk Hills sale, Gore stood across town on the campus of Georgetown University and delivered a speech to the White House Conference on Climate Change on the "terrifying prospect" of global warming, a problem he attributed to the unchecked use of fossil fuels such as oil.
"EVEN AS OCCIDENTAL was moving forward with plans to boost oil production at Elk Hills, Gore told his audience: "If we ignore the scientific warnings and continue stubbornly on our current course, we'd better begin to prepare what we would like to say to our children and grandchildren, because if they encounter the terrible consequences the scientific community is saying now come as a result of global climate disruption, and then look back at the evidence which was clearly laid out for us in our generation, they might fairly ask, 'If you knew all that, why didn't you do something about it?'"
"If there is one oil company that Gore might ask "our children and grandchildren" to forgive, it is Occidental Petroleum. The company has been a steady supplier of campaign funds to Gore and to the Democratic Party, though its relationship with Gore goes far deeper. Armand Hammer, who built Occidental Petroleum into the behemoth it is today and who's been described as "the Godfather of American corporate corruption," liked to say that he had Gore's father, Sen. Albert Gore, Sr., 'in my back pocket.' When the elder Gore left the Senate in 1970, Hammer gave him a $500,000-a-year job as the chairman of Island Coal Creek Co., an Occidental subsidiary, and a seat on Occidental's board of directors. By 1992, Gore owned Occidental stock valued at $680,000.
More at:
http://www.bannerofliberty.com/OS9-00MQC/9-26-2000.1.html
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