EXTRACTS:
Americans may be torn up by the BP oil spill and its destruction of the Gulf of Mexico’s natural habitat – and torn up we should be – but that habitat has not been pristine for decades. In many ways, Louisiana made its deal with the devil long ago.
“big oil plays an unnatural role in our politics. … Oil elects presidents, drives our foreign policy, our domestic policy, our climate change policy. … It’s led us to terrible energy policies and a breakdown of regulation. We look to the Niger Delta as an example of what an oil state does to its own environment, but it’s precisely what we’re doing to our own environment.”
Louisiana has paid a steep price for its bargain with the oil industry
By STEVEN MUFSON
Washington Post
July 24, 2010, 3:54PM
Huey Long, the famous Louisiana populist, launched his political career by waging war on the big oil companies, especially what he called Standard Oil’s “invisible empire.”
“I would rather go down to a thousand impeachments than to admit that I am the governor of the state that does not dare to call the Standard Oil Company to account,” he declared in a 1929 campaign circular.
But the threat of a thousand impeachments notwithstanding, Long later built his own invisible oil empire: In 1934, while he was a senator, he and his political associates formed the Win or Lose Corp. The company which had a reputation of never losing – bought up state mineral leases and resold them to oil companies at a healthy profit, while keeping a share for itself. Although Long died in 1935, his family and friends received royalties for decades. read more
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