From:
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2000623223921.htm
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
June 23, 2000
As gasoline prices skyrocket, so does value of Gore's oil stock
By Bill Sammon
Vice President Al Gore, who is trying to link George W. Bush
to soaring gasoline prices by emphasizing the Texas governor's
ties to the oil industry, controls at least $500,000 worth of
stock in Occidental Petroleum.
The stock came from Armand Hammer, an oilman with communist
ties who served for decades as financial benefactor to Mr. Gore
and his father, Sen. Albert Gore Sr.
Mr. Hammer, who used to brag that he kept the elder Gore "in
my back pocket," is believed to have helped recruit Soviet spies
to infiltrate the U.S. government.
The Bush campaign said Thursday it is hypocritical for Mr.
Gore — who controls between $500,000 and $1 million of Occidental
stock and is paid $20,000 a year by the firm — to portray the
Texas governor as a tool of Big Oil.
"Is Al Gore going to sell the upwards of $1 million in stock
his family owns in a major oil company?" said Bush spokesman
Scott McClellan. "It's clear that Al Gore is trying to divert
attention away from the Clinton-Gore administration's lack of
leadership and his own past support of higher gas prices."
Gore spokesman Doug Hattaway said the higher prices reflect
poorly on Mr. Bush because he once ran oil-exploration firms in
Texas and has accepted campaign contributions from oil companies.
By contrast, Mr. Hattaway described the vice president as a
consumer advocate who is taking on Big Oil to protect America's
working families.
"Bush is the one in a pickle because he is so closely tied
to the oil industry," Mr. Hattaway told Reuters. "People are
probably focusing their anger on the oil companies, which
actually set the prices. And it's clear that Gore is taking on
the companies."
But since becoming vice president, Mr. Gore has gone out of
his way to help Occidental. From 1995 through 1997, he engineered
the sale of an oil-rich expanse of publicly owned land — known as
the Elk Hills field in Bakersfield, Calif. — to Occidental.
Elk Hills had been zealously guarded since 1912 as a
strategic resource by the Navy. In 1922, oilmen bribed President
Harding's interior secretary for secret drilling leases, the
subsequent exposure of which resulted in the Teapot Dome scandal.
Congress resisted privatization attempts by Presidents Nixon
and Reagan, but relented when President Clinton pushed it through
as one of Mr. Gore's "reinventing government" reforms.
The sale of Elk Hills to Occidental was a dramatic departure
for an administration that has walled off huge expanses of
private land for public preserves.
"It was the largest privatization of federal property in
U.S. history, one that tripled Occidental's U.S. oil reserves
overnight," wrote Charles Lewis of the nonpartisan Center for
Public Integrity in his book, "The Buying of the President 2000."
The Energy Department normally assesses the environmental
impact of such a sale, but in this case, it allowed a private
firm, ICF Kaiser International, to do the assessment. One of
ICF's directors is Tony Coelho, who managed Mr. Gore's
presidential campaign until stepping down this month.
"There is clear hypocrisy here because the company that Al
Gore is closest to in the United States today is an oil company —
Occidental Petroleum," Mr. Lewis told The Washington Times
yesterday. "Politically, in terms of things he's done for them
and things they've done for him, they're two peas in a pod."
Occidental's founder and chief executive officer, Mr. Hammer
transformed Mr. Gore's father — a financially struggling freshman
congressman from rural Tennessee in the 1930s — into the
millionaire CEO of an Occidental subsidiary who was paid $500,000
a year by the time he retired from the Senate in 1971. Mr. Hammer
died in 1990 and the elder Gore died in 1998.
Mr. Hammer, who was classified in Soviet KGB files as an
"agent of influence" for Moscow, also bestowed his largess on the
younger Gore.
For decades, Occidental has paid the vice president $20,000
a year for mineral rights to zinc-rich land held by the Gore
family in Carthage, Tenn. The firm continues to make the payments
even though it has never mined the land.
Occidental loaned $100,000 to the committee handling the
Clinton-Gore inauguration. And, according to a White House memo,
Occidental gave $50,000 to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign
after being solicited by Mr. Gore from his White House office in
a phone call he said was covered by "no controlling legal
authority."
Occidental has given nearly half a million dollars in soft
money to Democrats since Mr. Gore became vice president. Two days
after Occidental's new chairman, Ray Irani, slept in the Lincoln
Bedroom, Occidental gave $100,000 to the Democratic National
Committee.
A Democratic source close to Mr. Gore did not attempt to
distance the vice president from Occidental. But the source
argued that Mr. Gore's blaming of the oil industry for soaring
gasoline prices proves the vice president is willing to buck his
own allies.
"There's a big difference between being connected to
somebody and speaking out against them, and being connected with
somebody and doing what they say," the source said.
But Mr. Gore's connections to Occidental have angered his
environmentalist allies. Eight environmental protesters were
jailed in New Hampshire earlier this year after disrupting a Gore
event by demanding he sever his ties with Occidental.
Environmentalists are upset about Occidental's plan to drill
on sacred ancestral land of a Colombian Indian tribe, which is
threatening mass suicide if the drilling goes forward. Mr. Gore
has refused to divest from Occidental or use his leverage to
block the planned drilling.
On Capitol Hill yesterday, Republicans ridiculed Mr. Gore's
assertion that high gas prices are the result of price gouging by
oil companies.
"We're not being gouged," said House Majority Leader Dick
Armey of Texas. "We're being Gored."
Audrey Hudson contributed to this report.
copyright © 2000 News World Communications, Inc.
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