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Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War!
Clinton Administration in Hot Seat Over Oil; Senator Demands Answers
Wes Vernon
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2000
Clinton administration officials have been summoned to testify on Capitol
Hill Thursday in a growing scandal surrounding the proposed exchange of oil
from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
In announcing the hearing Monday, Senate Energy Chairman Frank Murkowski,
R-Alaska, says he is alarmed over reports that the Energy Department failed
to make even rudimentary checks on some of the successful bidders, including
one that operates out of an apartment in New York City's Harlem, that were
having trouble raising money to complete the deals.
Failure to secure the needed financing could force the department to re-open
some of the bids. That could prevent release of all 30 billion barrels of oil
in time to meet the planned late November deadline.
Murkowski intends to grill administration officials about the release of the
oil, an action the senator says is intended only to meet emergencies such as
severe supply disruption, "not to lower prices when politics demand."
In the land of Clinton/Gore, say Republican critics, anything that threatens
Al Gore's election to the White House constitutes a "national emergency."
President Clinton on Sept. 22 announced he was ordering the release of the
petroleum to ease tight heating oil supplies before winter.
Acting Assistant Energy Secretary Robert Kripowicz has acknowledged that
little was known about several of the companies when their bids were selected.
These included three companies that were to receive a total of 10 million
barrels worth more than $334 million. Kripowicz emphasizes the bid would not
be final until the bidders came up with a letter of credit from a third party
to guarantee the full value of the oil.
The second-largest award went to a firm called Lance Stroud Enterprises of
New York City, which bid for 4 million barrels worth $133 million at current
market price. This company operates out of a Manhattan apartment which the
owner and company namesake shares with his mother.
Another bidder, Burhaney Energy Enterprises of Tallahassee, Fla., had only
been incorporated for two months, with minimal oil industry experience.
A third bidder, Euell energy Resources of Denver, Colo., which has only a
very few employees, nonetheless describes itself on its Web page as "a full
service energy corporation."
The AP tried without success last week to reach the owners of the three small
firms.
To set the scene for Thursday's hearing, Senator Murkowski has demanded that
the Energy Department (DOE) be prepared to give the following information:
1. A list of the bidders for Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) oil.
2. Details as to date of bid, amount, and type of SPR they were awarded.
3. Terms of the award for the bid winners.
4. Assurance that bid winners will be able to return oil to the SPR.
5. Reasons why there was no qualification for bidders prior to the bidding.
6. Reasons why losing bidders were not accepted.
7. A list of persons contacted by the department to inform them of the
exchange, and how they were contacted.
8. Whether or not the contracts require heating oil to be refined from the
SPR.
9. Provisions requiring heating oil refined from the SPR oil to be delivered
to the Northeast market.
10. Why the contracts didn't prohibit the export of SPR oil or product
refined from SPR oil.
On the latter point, Senator Murkowski questioned DOE's business sense in not
requiring that the oil be refined here in the U.S. and that it stay in this
country.
"We are releasing our energy for other countries when we need it the most,"
the senator declared.
Supposedly the purpose of the swap was to get home heating oil to the
Northeast in time for the winter.
"Why wasn't there a contractual obligation to make sure it will get there?"
asked the senator.
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has charged the White House
with releasing the oil merely to help his Democratic rival Al Gore surmount
the political problem of rising oil prices. Bush says that oil is only for
true national emergencies.
Gore has praised the administration's action.
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A vote for Bush or Gore is a vote to continue Clinton policies!
A vote for Buchanan is a vote to continue America!
Therefore a vote for Gore or Bush is a wasted vote for America!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for Patrick Buchanan!
Today, candor compels us to admit that our vaunted two-party system is a
snare and a delusion, a fraud upon the nation. Our two parties have become
nothing but two wings of the same bird of prey...
Patrick Buchanan
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