Street Sense, the newspaper in D.C. for, about, (partially) by, and sold by the homeless comes out every two weeks. I always buy a copy from the same vendor. There are some very good stories about what’s happening in and to the homeless community, often poetry and/or art, and some interesting profiles of the street vendors (who get $.75 of every dollar).
But on the front page of the current issue is a picture of several people marching with signs. The signs are all handmade and have slogans like "AFFORDABLE ENERGY NOW!" and "FOOD OR FUEL – Don’t Make Me Choose." Since this is a paper about the homeless, I assumed that the protest would be in support of low-income energy programs or maybe about getting low cost heating oil from from Hugo Chavez. I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was no article about this protest, but the caption under the picture read:
TRYING TO BRING ENERGY PRICES DOWN
A handful of demonstrators carry signs at a "Stop the War on the Poor" rally on Capitol Hill last week. The protest was organized by Americans for American Energy, a group that supports drilling for oil in offshore areas as well as in Alaska. Many of the 15 speakers, including Harry Jackson, senior pastor of the Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md., emphasized their view that domestic drilling will help the poor by bringing energy prices down.
From what I’ve heard (and I have been paying attention) the very earliest any oil would be available from offshore drilling would be 3 years and most estimates place it closer to 7 or more years. And then there’s no guarantee it would drop oil prices once it did become available, since the oil companies could then claim that the increasing shortage and drilling costs require even higher prices.
So I couldn’t help but wonder why anyone associated with homeless issues would view offshore drilling as beneficial to the homeless. In the caption to the picture, Americans for American Energy was designated as the organizer of the protest. Who is this group?
I checked out their website and found this information on their leadership.
http://www.americansforamericanenerg...
AAE is governed by a Board of Directors led by Wyoming State Senator Bill Vasey, a Democrat from Rawlins, Wyoming.
Almost half of his admittedly small campaign funding in 2006 came from the oil and gas industry, according to Project Vote Smart: $3,917 out of $8,077. But given that the oil & gas industry was the 2nd biggest contributor to Wyoming state senate campaigns (2nd only to self-financing) and contributed a total of $14,600 to all the state senate campaigns, he got more than 1/4 of the total contributed to state senate campaigns even though there were almost 50 different state senate candidates.
I doubt that $3,917 was enough to buy his support (unless he's incredibly cheap), but it's still pretty interesting.
Then there are two board members, both Republicans from the state legislatures in Utah & Colorado.
And the final individual profiled on the AAE website:
AAE is led at the staffing level by President & CEO Greg Schnacke. A senior staffer for former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (Kansas), Schnacke most recently served as Executive Vice President for 13 years for the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA).
Hmm... anyone want to guess what’s really behind this "homeless people’s" demonstration in favor of off-shore drilling?