America's Energy Policy Question: Did Big Oil Leave a Twenty on Cheney's Nightstand?
Well, the revelations are beginning to surface. On Monday, the Bush administration released 11,000 pages of documents relating to Vice-Whatever-You-Call-a-Presidential-Candidate-who-Finishes -Second-and-Moves-into-the-White-House-Anyway Dick Cheney's "energy task force." Man, I love that name. I suppose under this rationale, the Nazis who invaded Poland in 1939 can now be described as a "real estate task force." Regardless, it appears that the environmental groups were right all along. According to the released documents, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, a charter member of Bush's 2000 Election-Loser Jobs Program, held at least eight meetings with three dozen energy executives and lobbyists between February and April of 2001. At this point you might be wondering how many meetings Abraham had with other interested parties. Surely an energy task force would want input from those who didn't stand to profit from the policy, wouldn't it? So how many environmental experts, consumer watchdog groups, and plain old Americans did Abraham meet with before America's energy policy was formulated? You guessed it. None.
Of course, the most intriguing revelation is what didn't show up in the released documents. While 11,000 pages were released, 15,000 pages were withheld for such reasons as "internal agency practices," whatever that is. In addition, many documents that were released had whole sections marked out. This really begs the following question: How much worse than the released evidence, which shows that private corporations formulated our energy policy, are the revelations contained in the withheld stuff?
And then there's this question : If Cheney insists that he must withhold a majority of energy task force documents from the general public, what sort of security clearance do those corporate scumbags present at the policy formulation meetings have? They were not only privy to the information in the withheld documents, they were present when it was generated and, in many cases, probably supplied it to Abraham in the first place. Let's face it. There is only one reason that Cheney doesn't want Americans to see these documents: He doesn't want us to find out that our national energy policy exists to enrich the Bush administration's campaign contributors in the energy industry to the detriment of the public good. Anybody who thinks an energy policy formulated by the likes of Enron will benefit anybody other than the likes of Enron is, quite simply, an idiot.
Enjoy your new energy future, America. You get to live in an America that uses more and dirtier energy in less efficient vehicles and appliances, all while having fewer and more expensive alternative sources. You get to send your sons and daughters overse as to fight and die to keep the oil flowing to an increasingly energy-hungry nation. You get to live shorter and less healthy lives, thanks to the additional pollution. You get to watch as the nation's last pristine wilderness gets poked full of holes to find oil to piss away in SUVs. And as this ecological disaster begins to speed the increase in the global temperature, you will likely get to witness the starvation of hundreds of millions in the third world as fertile farm land becomes more and more inhospitable.
On the other hand, your Exxon stock should do great . . .
3/27/02
