U.S. Poor to Benefit from 6th Year of Subsidized Venezuelan Heating Oil

[Peace Patriot]

U.S. Poor to Benefit from 6th Year of Subsidized Venezuelan Heating Oil

By JUAN REARDON – VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM

Mérida, January 28th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Yesterday Venezuela’s Petroluem Corporation, CITGO announced the start of its sixth year providing subsidized heating oil to low-income people in the United States. An estimated 132,000 households across the U.S. will benefit from the program this year, amounting to $60 million dollars worth of savings.

Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of the late U.S politician Robert Kennedy and president of Citizen Energy Corporation, the U.S.-based non-profit organization that partnered with Citgo in 2005 to launch the Citgo-Venezuela Heating Oil Program, spoke at the Citgo ceremony on Thursday.

“Every year, we hear from families who struggle each and every day to put food on the table and heat their homes,” he said.

“We are deeply grateful to CITGO and the people of Venezuela for their generosity... Every year, we ask major oil companies and oil-producing nations to help our senior citizens and the poor make it through winter, and only one company, CITGO, and one country, Venezuela, has responded to our appeals,” he said.

In 2010, an estimated 500,000 people in the U.S. benefited from the program....in 25 states.

(MORE)

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5965

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This is especially helpful right now, I'm sure, with catastrophic cold and snow blizzards hitting the U.S. east coast and the midwest.

[social_critic]

1. Oh my, they are really laying it on thick

Take a few bucks worth of oil, hand it out, then you are a fat jesus wearing red and croaking about your vowel movements on national TV. Good show. Propaganda.

[Judi Lynn]

2. How well we remember the early attempts to mock this important US Democratic Congressman-initiated

effort years ago, as visitors to D.U. agitated against the very program put in motion by Joseph Kennedy and other Democratic Representatives, Senators, Mayors, Governors, in addition to the representatives of many Native American tribes, and eventually some Republican leaders, as well.

These people had already gone to the U.S.-based oil companies seeking relief in discounted prices for the harshest winter months for their poorest, neediest constituents, only to be met with a complete, profound refusal from the companies. It was THEIR inietive to seek this help from Venezuela, we all know it.

When U.S. rightests attempt to ridicule this, we all understand from where they're coming. It's not something they should want to admit. Shameful, anal, petty, and deeply ugly.

So glad to hear the program is still working, after all the interference from the right.

Posts from previous years at D.U.:

Jan 7, 2008 4:46 pm US/Eastern
CITGO, Venezuela Distribute Oil To U.S. Services

Joe Kennedy Program Delivers To Hordes Of NYC Qualified Residents

Provides 112 Million Gallons Of Fuel To Social Services In 23 States
NEW YORK (CBS) ―

For scores of low-income families it will be like the equivalent of winning a small lottery jackpot. A program run by former Congressman Joe Kennedy will deliver free heating oil – donated by Citgo and the Chavez regime in Venezuela – to some 200,000 households. CBS 2 takes a look at how the program works, and who qualifies.
(snip)

According to CITGO, The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program will provide an estimated 112 million gallons of fuel this winter to be distributed in more than 224,000 households and 250 social service providers in 23 states. These totals include the CITGO-Venezuela Tribal Heating Oil Program.

Once CBS 2 was able to get through, operators said they would send an application, asking basic information about household size and annual income.

Kennedy's office disclosed the income limit as 60 percent of the state median. So a New York family of four, for example, must make less than $43,302 to qualify. The only income verification is your signature, certifying you are telling the truth.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3128471

This article was also posted the same day at a conservative message board:
http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php?topic=306.0

Massachusetts in energy deal with Venezuela
Deal provides discounted oil to needy in state

updated 2:25 p.m. CT, Tues., Nov. 22, 2005

QUINCY, Mass. - Venezuelan officials signed a deal Tuesday to ship 12 million gallons (45 million liters) of discounted home heating oil to poor Americans in Massachusetts as part of plan by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez to help needy U.S. communities.

The fuel is being offered by Citgo Petroleum Corp., a subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company which runs roughly 16,000 gas stations in the U.S.

U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, who helped broker the deal, called the agreement "an expression of humanitarianism at its very best," and rejected criticism that the move was motivated by politics. Chavez often blames the plight of the poor on unbridled capitalism and had criticized U.S. President George W. Bush's government for failing to reduce poverty.

"This is a gesture about people," said Delahunt, a Democrat.

Delahunt said the agreement could set an example for U.S. oil companies. Congressional leaders have asked the companies to use some of their profits to fund heating fuel assistance programs for low-income residents.

"I just hope that this sends a message, and that other oil companies will step and help also," Delahunt said.

More:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10157028 /

http://www.polarbearandco.com.nyud.net:8090/mainedem/citgo2.jpg

Gov. Baldacci got Venezuelan heating oil for Maine.

http://nylatinojournal.com.nyud.net:8090/home/images/stories/bronx_citgo2.jpg

Congressman Jose Serrano, Citgo President Felix Rodriguez,
Shaun M. Belle, President and CEO of Mount Hope Housing
Company on hand the first day heating oil was delivered
to the Bronx the very first year.

Venezuela's Leader to Send Heating Oil to South Bronx

A group of South Bronx residents will soon receive a large - and inexpensive - shipment of heating oil, courtesy of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a frequent thorn in the side of the Bush administration.

Under an agreement between President Chávez and United States Representative José E. Serrano, Citgo, the Houston-based American subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, will provide eight million gallons of discounted home heating oil this winter to thousands of low-income residents of the South Bronx.

The populist government of the Venezuelan president is one of Latin America's most vocal critics of American-style capitalism. Mr. Chávez has led anti-Bush rallies in his country and has accused the United States of trying to kill him and invade his country.

The oil should start arriving late next week or early in the week of Dec. 5, Mr. Serrano, a Bronx Democrat, said in an interview yesterday. He said that the oil would be provided at 40 percent below the market rate.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1948007

~~~~~

This is the story of how several U.S. based organisations asked every oil company operating in America for assistance to provide free or cheap heating oil to the disadvantaged in the United States of America.

Exxon , BP and all the major and minor oil firm refused point blank.All except one.That company was the Venezuelan state run oil giant PDVSA and there state owned subsidiery CITGO :-

CITGO, Venezuela Distributes Oil To U.S. Services
January 8th 2008, by Tony Aiello - WCBSTV

NEW YORK (CBS) ― For scores of low-income families it will be like the equivalent of winning a small lottery jackpot. A program run by former Congressman Joe Kennedy will deliver free heating oil – donated by Citgo and the Chavez regime in Venezuela – to some 200,000 households. CBS 2 takes a look at how the program works, and who qualifies.

~snip~
According to CITGO, The CITGO-Venezuela Heating Oil Program will provide an estimated 112 million gallons of fuel this winter to be distributed in more than 224,000 households and 250 social service providers in 23 states. These totals include the CITGO-Venezuela Tribal Heating Oil Program.

Once CBS 2 was able to get through, operators said they would send an application, asking basic information about household size and annual income.

Kennedy's office disclosed the income limit as 60 percent of the state median. So a New York family of four, for example, must make less than $43,302 to qualify. The only income verification is your signature, certifying you are telling the truth.

Santiago applied on Dec. 4, 2007, and a week later received a voucher to pay her oil company when it delivered 100 gallons on Dec. 14.Santiago says it's almost $400 she won't have to spend, warming her home. For many, that's a warm thought.

Kennedy's office says every qualifying household that applies will be approved until all the available oil is allocated. That is projected to occur before the application period ends on Feb. 29, so the time to apply is now.

source http://wcbstv.com/local/joe.kennedy.citgo.2.624860.html

Baltimore mother receives discounted Venezuelan heating oil
By ALEX DOMINGUEZ, The Associated Press
Dec 6, 2006 1:15 PM (3 hrs ago)

BALTIMORE - A 58-year-old disabled mother is the latest beneficiary of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' oil largesse.

Citgo Petroleum Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state-owned oil company, delivered discounted heating oil on Wednesday to Debra Henderson's Baltimore home, the first of 15,000 needy households in Maryland slated to receive more than 3 million gallons of discounted fuel.

Citgo is providing up to 200 gallons to each household at 40 percent discount.

The heating oil program is part of a promise by the country's socialist leader to aid America's poor. Along with poor homes, Citgo is also donating free oil to homeless shelters.

Nationally, Citgo said it will expand the program beyond the Northeast to provide oil at a 40 percent discount to more than 400,000 households in 16 states. It will more than double the amount of oil provided, from nearly 40 million gallons last winter to more than 100 million gallons for this winter.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2642953

Thousands in Mass. to get cheaper oil
Delahunt, Chávez help broker deal
By Michael Levenson and Susan Milligan, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff | November 20, 2005

A subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company will ship 12 million gallons of discounted home-heating oil to local charities and 45,000 low-income families in Massachusetts next month under a deal arranged by US Representative William D. Delahunt, a local nonprofit energy corporation, and Venezuela's president, White House critic Hugo Chávez.

The approximately $9 million deal will bring nine million gallons of oil to families and three million gallons to institutions that serve the poor, such as homeless shelters, said officials from Citizens Energy Corp., which is signing the contract. Families would pay about $276 for a 200-gallon shipment, a savings of about $184 and enough to last about three weeks.

The contract is to be signed Tuesday by officials from Citizens Energy, based in Boston, and CITGO, a Houston-based subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela SA. The contract was arranged after months of talks between Delahunt, a Quincy Democrat active in Latin American affairs, and Chávez, a leftist former paratrooper and fierce critic of the Bush administration.

''We recognized that we had an opportunity," Delahunt's spokesman, Steve Schwadron, said yesterday.

Chávez showed ''an inclination to do a humanitarian distribution" of oil, and poor families in Massachusetts had a ''desperate need" for relief from high home-heating prices, Schwadron said. He characterized the deal as one between ''a US company and two nonprofits to help them do more of what they already do, with terms that mean the price is good."

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/11/20/thousands_in_mass_to_get_cheaper_oil/

[social_critic]

4. it's propaganda

Venezuela has a really bad economy. It has very poor people who are really suffering, yet Chavez dares take the Venezuelan's people money and gives it away abroad to polish his name. It's a shame. And this is one of the reasons why his popularity is going down all the time. You don't seem to get it because you look at it from an American's point of view.

As the tyrants of the world shake in their boots watching the events in Tunisia and Egypt unfold, I am sure the coming wave of freedom will sweep Latin America. Castro will be first, I'm sure. The others will follow in due course.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Kicking. Too late to recommend, unfortunately.

:kick: :kick: :kick: :kick: