Chávez Reclaims Political Capital by Reinstating U.S. Heating Oil program; Why Don’t American Oil Companies do the Same?

As The HEAT Zone reported yesterday, the CITGO heating oil assistance program was hastily restored after a brief two-day suspension brought on by economic concerns in the Venezuelan government as a result of slumping oil revenue. In response to the rapid policy change, Time writer Tim Padgett wrote an intriguing article wondering why American oil companies do not take a cue from Chávez’s political savvy and implement heating oil assistance programs of their own.

It seems obvious that the oil industry, whose public standing has been badly damaged in the last year by frighteningly high gasoline and heating oil prices that at least appear to be the direct cause of recent windfall profits could benefit greatly from a show of generosity. In Padgett’s words, Chávez’s heating giveaway was “one of the more impressive p.r. coups of the new century.” It would certainly be more difficult to curse the likes of Exxon or Chevron for $4.50 a gallon gasoline if those companies were making small financial sacrifices to help poor Americans stay warm in the winter.

When asked to comment for the article, an Exxon spokesman stated that the company “shares concerns” about poor Americans’ lack of means to attain heating oil, but claimed that existing government programs are “the best way to address these needs.” That may be true, but could kicking in a few extra hundred thousand barrels of heating oil at discounted prices do any harm?

Even if Chávez’s program is politically motivated and not a product of his compassion for the downtrodden masses of the Western Hemisphere, the result is the same: people who can barely afford to heat their homes in the winter get a break. Similarly, even if Big Oil provided discounted heating oil to a small number of poor Americans as a thinly-veiled “sorry for really sticking it to you on gas prices last year,” more people would get the help they need, which is always a good thing. And if American consumers saw the major oil companies in a more positive light as a result, then everyone would end up better off.