Big Oil has a friend in the White House

Speaking at Senate hearings last week, the chief executives of five Big Oil companies denied that their companies attended secret meetings with Cheney’s 2001 energy task force.
Some of them should be glad they didn’t testify under oath: A White House document obtained this week by The Washington Post shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco, Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. indeed met with the Cheney task force and provided them with detailed energy policy suggestions.
Did that special access have anything to do with the generous subsidies and tax breaks subsequently offered to the industry? Sure looks that way.
At any rate, Cheney’s secrecy — and the oil exec’s dissembling — don’t inspire trust in open government.
Posted by Randy Scholfield

13 Comments

  1. Jed
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 1:47 am | Permalink

    A friend in the White House? If there was any oil under it, we wouldn’t have a White House!

  2. Sum1
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 4:51 am | Permalink

    All along the oil companies believed they could keep their involvement in Cheney’s task force a secret.

    After all, it was just weeks after Scalia when hunting with Cheney that the supreme court ruled that Cheney didn’t need to reveal who attended.

  3. kansassam
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 4:57 am | Permalink

    Jed…You think there is any under there? We could invoke “public domain” and get in on the big money!!

    You know, my son went on a mission trip to Bolivia. He said that the oil just bubbles up out of the ground, and not an oil rig in sight anywhere! Why don’t we go after that oil? I’ll bet they have WMD’s too……

  4. JUSTA GUY
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 6:17 am | Permalink

    DUH!!

  5. TRACY
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 7:24 am | Permalink

    Bolivia?Do they have any tubes or anything we can pass off as evil menaces to world population?

  6. Ed Friedemann
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 8:02 am | Permalink

    Notice what the Washington Post doesn’t talk about, or “lies by omission.”Let us look at the example of just one of them: Israel, a country that has done much to discredit, if not destroy, democratic and moral values. Do you know what happens to all that money the US gives Israel every year — like the $10 billion provided by Congress in the same bill initially funding the Iraq war, in addition to its billions for criminal activity? It is put into a secretive slush fund, unaccountable to all, including the US. Where does that money go? Most of it goes for multimillion-dollar bribes to Congress and administration officials, even upper level CIA. Cute way for Israel to get everything its heart desires, don’t you think?

    Don’t believe me. Write your Senator for an accounting.

  7. Joe Williams
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 9:02 am | Permalink

    Oil!

  8. Allie
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 10:17 am | Permalink

    Ok, lying and dissembling – well that is the Bush White House culture, which mirrors the business culture right now. Get any major corp’s. exec’s in and see how they dissemble. However, I find it hard to hear all these capitalists up in furor over oil corp’s profits. See, that’s how the system works. Oil- scarce resource; demand – steadily increasing. Result – major oil profits.

  9. God
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 11:50 am | Permalink

    The white house id full of oil! Bush and Cheney are oil men who own energy companies. Satan is in charge. He lives in the white house! He lies too.

  10. TRACY
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 12:13 pm | Permalink

    God you had better check with Pat R. before issueing decrees on this subject, after all you’re gettin’ into his territory now.Don’t you have some wars or fatwa’s or jihads or something you oughta’ be endorsing right now?Hasn’t Pat got you working on the asassination thing?

  11. Galahad
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 12:25 pm | Permalink

    This is what conservatives call “the free market.”

    Powerful special interests rigging the system against ordinary Americans, that’s “the free market.”

    The “free market” is why big oil makes obscene profits off a national disaster–it’s why Halliburton makes billions war-profiteering in Iraq.

    Oh, it’s free all right. Free to let the rich and powerful become richer and more powerful.

  12. k
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 5:44 pm | Permalink

    Free market…now a conservative euphemism for “it’s ok to lie, cheat, and steal”.

  13. Ed Friedemann
    Posted November 17, 2005 at 6:06 pm | Permalink

    Senior Democrat Rep. John Murtha is calling for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/17/murtha.iraq/index.html